When she died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, she only With all the attention surrounding her wealth, eventually Sarah Rector attracted the attention of another type of man: one who did not see black or white so much as green. Black newspapers at the time, like the Chicago Defender in 1914, were angered by this takeover. Born on March 3, 1902 in the small town of Twine, Okla., Rectors family were descendants of slaves and Creek Indians. In 1913, 11-year-old Sarah Rector became the richest Black girl in America, almost by accident. HEAD BACK TO THE BLACKAMERICAWEB.COM HOMEPAGE, Age AintWhat?! Diane Euston, a Kansas City history writer and preservationist, had seen it, too. Sarah's father Joseph was the son of John Rector, a Creek Freedman. Everyone has their own agenda (even those directly concerned) so we have to take bias into account. DuBoisbecame concerned about her welfare. His petition was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, so he was required to continue paying the taxes. Three sisters, now in their 60s and 70s, sat down with 41 Action News Anchor Kevin Holmes to talk They said, Whatevers down there, you dont bother with it. Her descendants never knew. Sarah Rector became an extremely famous personality all over the country and some places in the world. All rights reserved 2022 Collective Culture. The Rector Mansion in Kansas City still stands though, and her descendants hope to buy it back from the city and turn it into a museum about her life. She divorced Campbell and married restaurant owner Rumors even claimed that she was a white immigrant girl that was being kept in poverty. Brown, then a grade-schooler living in a two-bedroom house with three siblings, her parents and her grandmother, marveled but didnt dare ask questions. [11] Given her wealth, in 1913, the Oklahoma Legislature made an effort to have her declared white, allowing Rector to reap the benefits of her elevated social standing, such as riding in a first-class car on the trains.[4]. Additionally, Joe and Rose now had a daughter who was transformed as a little black girl from Taft to a millionaire headline overnight. PO Box 54309 The family didnt leave Kansas City as some like to report; five generations of Rector descendants still call this place home. increase font size, Honor Black History Month by learning the rags to riches story of Sarah Rector. Part of the trick also included an annual payment of property tax of about 30 dollars; money Sarahs family didnt have to spare. She also owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and restaurant inMuskogee, Oklahoma, and 2,000 acres of land. Under the laws of the time, black parents were not automatically given guardianship of their own children. Diane Euston writes a regular history column regarding the Kansas City area on her blog The New Santa Fe Trailer. Were from a generation where you dont spread family business, said Brown, a very fit-looking 72-year-old with a short afro seated in the lobby of the Hampton Inn in Bowie, Md. In 1913, an oil driller discovered a gusher that produced a reported 2,500 barrels per day. More intriguing, what happened to this young African American woman who was part of the Creek [Indian] freedmen? about $11 million Sarah Rector became a millionaire at the age of 11. At that point, she left Tuskegee and, with her entire family, moved to Kansas City, Missouri. By 1922, Sarah was able to make her own decisions, and she married her first husband that year. Many turned out to be thieves. Rectors lost most of her wealth during The Great Depression. Then in 1917, the source of all the speculation vanished from Oklahoma. [4] Sarah Rector died in 1967 from a stroke at the age of 65. Some estimates place Sarah Rectors net worth at the time at $1 million, or about $28 million today. Shes Not Madeleine: Scotland Yard Refutes Julias Allegations of Being Madeleine McCann. That year Rector married Kenneth Campbell, and the couple had three sons, Kenneth, Jr., Leonard, and Clarence. Sarah wound up marrying a former college football player she met in Kansas City. Historically so. As a result, Rectors guardianship switched from her parents to a white man named T.J. Porter. B.E. She never managed to recover all that wealth, though she lived comfortably for the rest of her life until the age of 65. Their backward and insistent narrative has even taken them to resort to legal shenanigans to maintain their speech and benefit from it. High-Paid in Hollywood: 8 of the Richest Black Actors in 2021. A guardian was appointed to manage young Sarahs income, and a judge oversaw the guardian. The Roaring 20s had dawned and the spending began in earnest: furs, luxury cars, lavish parties and the shopping sprees at the Emery, Bird, Thayer department store. Born as the daughter of freedmen in 1902, Sarah Rector rose from humble beginnings to reportedly become the wealthiest black girl in the nation at the age of 11. If youre unfamiliar with the story, The Richest Black Girl in America is set in the early 1900s, and follows the true tale of Sarah Rector, an 11-year-old Black girl in Jim Crow America, who is given reparations in the form of uninhabitable land by the U.S. government. Sarah was born on October 23, 1974 in Woodward, Oklahoma to John L. and Carol (Machacek) Ferguson. A photo of Sarah Rector with one of her cars has been removed from the story due to questions about the cars make and model. Rector and her family where African American members of the Muscogee Creek Nation who lived in a modest cabin in the predominantly black town of Taft, Oklahoma, which, at the time, was considered Indian Territory. [12] Thus, as soon as Rector began to receive this windfall, there was pressure to change Rector's guardianship from her parents to a local white resident named T.J. (or J.T.) When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. Likely in order to escape scrutiny and not wanting to be the target of some greedy partys act, ABOUT Unfortunately, Rector lost a majority of her wealth during The Great Depression and moved out of her Du Bois is said to have written directly to the county judge who oversaw Rectors affairs for more information. [11], To help cover this expense, in February 1911, Joseph Rector leased Sarah's parcel to the Standard Oil Company. The Wichita BeaconNewspaper articles about Sarah Rector spread throughout America and were filled with the casual racism of the era. Sarah Rector wasnt living near Taft, or in Tuskegee, Bolden concluded. Sarah Rector was fortunate in that her guardian did not take advantage of her wealth and that the local law protected her (many other black children wound up being scammed out of their wealth or far worse). Walker (born Sarah Breedlove; December 23, 1867 May 25, 1919) was an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. In March, 1912, oil driller B.B. Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle are privately owned by the Queen. The most vexing bit to Brown: the black-and-white photo of the somber-faced girl with pigtails wearing a dark plaid dress. In 1913, an independent driller, B.B. Rector was already a millionaire by the time she had turned 18. Headlines such as Girls $112,000 a Year, Negro Girl Will Pay Largest Tax, and Negro Girl Rich From Oil- Has Income of $475 Daily More Soon sensationalized the story of a small girl and her familys reality. It became known as the Rector Mansion, Tonya Bolden said. Sarah married her first husband, Kenneth Campbell, in 1920. FOLLOW US ONTWITTERANDINSTAGRAM. She threw lavish parties and entertained celebrities such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington. When Sarah Rector died at age 65, she had used up a good portion of her fortune but she still had a few oil-producing wells and some real estate. Sarah Rectors case spotlighted the practice of transferring guardianship of black childrens wealth to whites. According to a report from BlackPast.org: In 1914The Chicago Defenderpublished an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by grafters and her ignorant parents, and that she was uneducated, dressed in rags, and lived in an unsanitary shanty. At 18, Rector came fully into her wealth, free now of guardians. Who was the first richest black woman in America? She had three boys. Joe Rector also began receiving payments of about $50 a month about $1,500 in todays dollars. . Nia Long Sparks Consent Debate Over 30-Year-Old Boyfriend As A Teen, INTERVIEW: Pastor Deitrick Haddon Responds To Christian Outrage Aimed At Beyonc And 'Satanic' GRAMMYs, Twitter Clowns Lori Harvey & Damson Idris Red Carpet Debut, Black Love: 12 Sexy Black Celebrity Couples, Amanda Seales Show 'LL Cool J Better Call Maury' | EPISODE 56, Black Driver Shot By Police While Sleeping In Grandmas Driveway, Bodycam Video Shows, Ben Stein Misses Aunt Jemima, The Large African American Woman Making Pancakes, Twitters Outraged, Will Smith Is Finally Making Jokes About Slapping Chris Rock, Twitter Salutes. Her maternal great-great-grandmother had been enslaved by Creek Chief Opothle Yoholo in Alabama during the first half of the 19th century, according to Tonya Bolden, author of Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America published in 2014. Kim Kardashian is now officially a billionaire: Forbes estimates her net worth is approximately $1 billion, up from $780 million in October 2020. She sued her enslaver for reparations and won. Sarahs acreage, divided into two parcels near the bend in the Cimarron River, did not appear to be an exception. This prompted Du Bois to establish the Children's Department of the NAACP, which would investigate claims of white guardians who were suspected of depriving black children of their land and wealth. Entrepreneurs Summit That same year, Sarah was making over $300 a day, which has been estimated to be around $8,000 today. By then, Rector owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and the Busy Bee Caf in Muskogee, Okla. Nicks herself had an affair with Mick Fleetwood in early 1978 while he was married to Jenny Boyd. There, the Rectors eventually moved into a home that was a far cry from that weather-whipped two-room cabin in which Sarah began life. reduce font size When she died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, she only had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. Black Men XCEL A record 13 feet of snow accumulated in the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range by Tuesday evening - the heaviest snow fall since 1985. In 1914, an African American journal, The Chicago Defender, began to take an interest in Rector, just as rumors began to fly that she was a white immigrant who was being kept in poverty. Eventually, Sarah married William Crawford, a restaurateur whom she helped to open a second restaurant in Tulsa. She had five siblings. ), Although slavery was not common among Native Americans, prominent members of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole tribes in the southeastern states sometimes enslaved people, in part to flaunt them as status symbols. In 1887, the state declared the Dawes Allotment Act, which established that all Creek Freedmen minors had to be granted land. In September 1913, The Kansas City Star local newspaper published the headline, Millions to a Negro Girl Sarah Rector, 10-Year Old, Has Income of $300 A Day From Oil, reports Face 2 Face Africa. [16], Rector died on July 22, 1967, at the age of 65. Eventually, it netted her upwards of $8,000 per day in todays currency. Sarahs paternal grandparents were likely born in slavery inside of the Creek tribe in eastern Alabama. In return for that and otherwise assimilating to Anglo-American culture, White Southerners often called them the Five Civilized Tribes.. The Rector Mansion use to belong to Sarah Rector, the richest 12-year-old Black American at that time. The newspaper published an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by her family and that she was uneducated, and had a poor quality of life. W.E.B. Du Bois, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and its magazine, the Crisis, became involved in Sarah Rectors case when Du Bois received a memo from James C. Waters, Jr., an attorney and agent affiliated with the NAACP, on June 18, 1914. She felt betrayed by her bandmate. Some Native Americans had owned slaves and Sarahs family lived Masthead. Her great-grandparents had been slaves of the Creeks in their ancestral homelands in Alabama and Georgia, but after the Civil War, Creek slaves were freed. It is important to hear from those directly concerned, rather than base research solely on archival material like newspaper clippings. By the time she turned 18, Rector was worth an estimated $1 million, or about $11 million today. Sarahs luck hit in part because of her ancestry and the way in which land allotments for Native Americans- and their freedmen slaves- occurred in Oklahoma. We cant prove with absolute certainty to everybody that its not her, Brown said, because there are no childhood photos that exist for comparison. (Bolden said she found the disputed book cover photo in The American magazine. The facts, including that Rectors themselves had selected Porter, a family friend, went unacknowledged. How the author stumbled on Sarahs story is included in this spellbinding presentation of an early America and real-life mysteries. At some point, the mansion was sold and Rector moved into a more modest house. She owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, businesses, and a 2,000-acre (810ha) piece of prime river bottomland. There were the fancy limos and Cadillacs that ferried young relatives to school and out for barbecue, the White-owned department store that opened its doors just so Sarah Rector could shop; the rolling farmland where Rector would invite Browns mother and the children for family gatherings. The parcel allotted to Sarah Rector was located in Glenpool, 60 miles (97km) from where she and her family lived. In the late 1950s, Brown was 7 and Rector was in her late 50s when Aunt Sister would have her and her mother, Rectors youngest sister, down to her farm. Cover photo: These photos are commonly used when telling the story of Sarah Rector, however her descendants claim these are not her. reset to default font size Sarah Rector was not immune from the Great Depression, however, which cost her most of her fortune and Sarah Rectors net worth at the time of her death is a matter of debate and speculation. Barrels per day able to make her own decisions, and a judge oversaw guardian... 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what happened to sara recor