Published Essays
Please, enjoy this sampling of five of my 30+ published essays
The book jacket for Nothing More Than Murder, 1949, featured Jim Thompson showing his muse, Deadline, some correspondence from Harpers concerning his new murder mystery.
Jim Thompson, True Crime Novelist: Teetering on Hell's Doorstep
“Jimmie Thompson convulsed on his bedroom floor; blood poured out of his mouth. His heart raced and beat irregularly. The doctor quickly assessed the 19-year-old's health: complete nervous collapse, tuberculosis, and alcoholism with delirium tremens.”
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“Months later, Thompson suffered a massive heart attack that placed him in a four-day coma. Doctors predicted he would not survive. When he proved them wrong, they called him “Superman.”
Superman, Dostoevsky, Bogart. He was all of these men, and he was none of these men. In his soul he remained the kid at the editor’s desk of the Ft. Worth Press: bruised by disrespect and thriving when offered dignity. In his final days, Thompson could smoke only when a family member was present. Raising two fingers as if holding a cigarette, his unfiltered Pall Mall was placed in the V of his stained fingers. It made him smile from the confines of his bed.
A determined Thompson rallied to attend Christmas at daughter Sharon's home in Huntington Beach. Jim ran through all his old stories - same scenes, same words. He made a simple request to drive to the shore. Quietly, he sat in the car, watching the ocean waves crash against the sand and listening to the hiss on their way out.”
The New Territory, fall 2018
The Exonerated Czar of Greenwood
J.B. Stradford was the wealthiest man in Greenwood at the time of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The trained lawyer and former slave stood up for minority rights. And it cost him. White mobsters and Ku Klux Klanners razed the most successful all-black community in America as a power grab to claim valuable downtown land with railroad access, killing up hundreds and burning down 64-square blocks of Black American homes and businesses.
This Land Press February 2014
The Hidden History of Tulsa 2014
Ku Klux Klan Induction on a farm outside of Tulsa after the Race Massacre in downtown Tulsa, 1921.
Beno Hall: Tulsa’s Den of Terror
“The monstrous, three-story, steel reinforced, stucco building towered along the western edge of Greenwood. It dominated the landscape at the foot of Standpipe Hill, sporting a bright whitewash, the favorite color of its primary residents. Inside, its members vowed to protect their notion of “100% Americanism.” To become a guardian of liberty, they reasoned, you had to swear to secrecy and seclusion. And you had to embrace intimidation and violence as a way to assert your values.
In January of 1922, the Tulsa Benevolent Association of Tulsa, Oklahoma was officially formed as a holding company for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated. Among its founding members was Washington E. Hudson, the attorney for Dick Roland – the young black who was a scapegoat for the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. They provided the financing and leadership to begin building their Klan temple, or Klavern, known as Beno Hall. Locals jokingly called it “Be No Hall” as in “Be No Nxxxxx, Be No Jew, Be No Catholic, Be No Immigrant.”
This Land Press, September 2011
Hidden History of Tulsa, 2014
The Odd Couple of Racial Reconciliation
Johnny Lee Clary lived in Tulsa when he was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1980s. He was a tough man, prejudiced as hell. Then he met a black preacher; Wade Watts, head of the Oklahoma NAACP. They met on several radio talk shows and the hard glacier that was Clary began to thaw.
This Land Press August 2013
Hidden History of Tulsa 2014
Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis finally arrived on the Rock in 1936 and stayed longer in Alcatraz than any inmate in history, 36 year. He taught Charles Mason slide guitar. Tulsan Alvin "Creepy" Karpis became America's Most Wanted Fugitive in 1936.
‘Creepy’ Karpis and the Tulsa Central Park Gang
“Dental records proved the badly decomposed body that washed up on the Crystal Beach shores of Ontario, minus hands and feet, to be twenty-nine-year-old crime-boss physician, Joseph P. Moran, M.D. of Chicago.
So that one bad guy, Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis could not be traced to abandoned hotel rooms and cars, Moran had injected Karpis’ fingers with cocaine and successfully scraped off his fingerprints. The doctor also helped launder a portion of the $200,000 ransom money for St. Paul banker Edward Bremmer. While drinking heavily with the gang at the Casino Club outside Toldeo one evening, he bragged, “I have you guys in the palm of my hand.”
Later that night, Moran disappeared. Authorities claimed Tulsans Fred Barker and Karpis had taken him night fishing on Lake Erie.”
This Land Press, December 2011
Hidden History of Tulsa, 2014