Audio Materials

Audiovisual Materials

Photographs

<h2>Biographical / Historical</h2>
<p>Eddie Faye Gates, African American woman, educator, historian, author, and community activist, was born on February 5, 1934 to sharecroppers Ferman and Vivian Minter Petit in Preston, Oklahoma. She graduated from Douglas High School in Okmulgee, Oklahoma (1954), attended Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Composite Social Science from the University of North Dakota (1968) and the University of Tulsa with a Master of Arts degree in History (1974). She taught US and World History at Edison Senior High School (now Edison Preparatory School) in Tulsa, Oklahoma for 20 years and became the Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator for the Tulsa Public School System. After retiring from the Tulsa Public School system in 1992, Gates’ published three books, Miz Lucy’s Cookies: And Other Links in My Black Family Support System (1996), They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (1997), and Riot on Greenwood: The Total Destruction of Black Wall Street (2003). In 1998, Gates was appointed to the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and served as Chair of the Survivors Committee. She labored to locate, interview, and recover the experiences of more than 200 survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and gathered information from more than 300 of their descendants.</p>
<h2>Source of Acquisition</h2>
<p>The Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Race Massacre Collection was received by the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art as a gift from the Gates Family in 2020.</p>
<h2>Access Restrictions</h2>
<p>The Eddie Faye Gates collection is open for research. Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply based on copyright and/or licensing. All collection materials, including those not online, may be accessed in-person in the Maxine and Jack Zarrow Reading Room at the Helmerich Center for American Research. Please submit a Request to Conduct Research form to schedule a research visit. For all other inquiries, please contact hcarlibrary@utulsa.edu. </p>
<h2>Use Restrictions</h2>
<p>Please contact the Rights and Reproduction Department for information on publishing or reproducing materials included in these records. Permission will be granted by the Gilcrease Museum as the owner of the physical materials, and does not imply permission from the copyright holder. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain all necessary permissions from the copyright holder.</p>
<h2>Processing Information</h2>
<p>Staff, interns, and volunteers of the Thomas Gilcrease Library and Archive have contributed to the organization and maintenance of the files since the collection passed to the City of Tulsa in the 1950s.</p>
<h2>Previous Number 1</h2>
<p>TL2019.20</p>
<h2>Credit Line</h2>
<p>Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa OK, teacher, author, community activist</p>
<h2>Separated Materials</h2>
<p>Sent to Gilcrease Library Collection:<br />
A Century of African-American Experience: Greenwood, Ruins, Resilience and Renaissance, Greenwood Cultural Center, 2003 (2 copies)</p>
<h2></h2>
<p>[Note sent from Payton Scott on 2/19/2024]<br />
My great grandmother was Pauline Petitt-Scott. She was the oldest out of 14 children. My great grandparents moved to Oklahoma around 1908/1909. My great grandparents didn’t stay long in Oklahoma because they were ran off by white people and they took their land away from them. When my family left my great grandfather at the time was sick with a fever and my great grandmother had to take charge. She put all over children in overalls and put deep cuts in the overalls so the can have pockets to put there belongs in and they left. They did have an encounter with a white man while they were leaving. The white man asked my great grandmother “Where are you heading to?”. My great grandmother told them they were going to the next county to go pick cotton but really they were leaving to go to Texas. Then in the early 1920’s the family left out to Arizona for better opportunities. As my great grandmother got older she left out to California to live with her children where they took care of  her. Now going to back Texas my great grandmother’s father was Crockett James Petitt who was the oldest brother of Mattie Margaret Petit-Peevyhouse, Adeline Petit, Cynthia A. Petit-Bankhead, Emma M. Petit-Adams, Sarah Jane Petit-Chatman, John Petitt, and Joseph Berry Petit.  He was a slave in Gonzales, Texas under a man named Robert Todd Pettit. I’m not sure how the Petit family got to Falls, Texas but originally we were Gonzales, Texas. So as you can see there was a lot of moving around throughout the Petit family but they were very successful. I know most of the sisters were teachers and graduated from Texas A&amp;M. The brothers were successful farmers.</p>
