When she died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, she only had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. 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. When she was 20 years old, Sarah married Kenneth Campbell; he was known to be the second Black man in the US to own an auto dealership. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. His petition was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, so he was required to continue paying the taxes. How better to impress White Southerners than to become slaveholders themselves? This was an irrevocable law so that Oklahoma could be integrated into US territory. Along with the oil, the checks began flowing, as if by magic, to the Rectors, who, illiterate and barely scraping by, knew little about managing money. Sarah Rector became a millionaire at the age of 11. John Rector's mother Mollie McQueen was the Muscogee Opothleyahola, who fought in the Seminole Wars and split with the tribe, moving his followers to Kansas. Any oil produced would give a 12.5 percent royalty to the land owner. Her parents were African American members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Three sisters, now in their 60s and 70s, sat down with 41 Action News Anchor Kevin Holmes to talk Sarah is buried in a peaceful parcel of land known as Blackjack Cemetery back home in Oklahoma where she was born. He had lived in the home for over 17 years. Two years after Sarahs piece of land was leased to the oil company an independent driller hit a massive reserve of oil capable of producing 2,500 barrels of oil and todays equivalent of $7,000 for Sarahs pockets every day. Consider Little Sarah Rector, Unkempt, Illiterate, 12-year-old child, Half Negro, Half Creek Indian, read a 1918 article published in the Enid (Oklahoma) Events, managing two errors in the opening lines. [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.) Meanwhile, Chinas state-run media portrays China as acting as a good faith peacemaker. By the time she turned 18, Rector was worth an estimated $1 million, or about $11 million today. She was the owner of stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a restaurant in Oklahoma, a bakery, and around 2,000 acres of land. At this point, her lawyers claimed that she owned $750,000 in oil properties along with other assets that pushed her worth to over $1 million. Who is the youngest richest woman in the world? Great greed followed great wealth, however, and the hunger for oil money sometimes led to murder, a phenomenon that played out notoriously in the decades-long killings of the Osage Indians for their oil rights beginning just a few years before Sarah struck it rich. She divorced Campbell and married restaurant owner William Crawford, who she remained with until she died. Sarah Ferguson says the late Queen was her 'total idol' and 'put you at ease straightaway' - and admits when her corgis 'bark at nothing' she 'believes it's the monarch passing by' 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. Sales Partnership Solutions Rector began to receive a daily income of $300 from this strike. It would be wonderful to see a bio about her!. Historically, racism has Although Joseph Rector had selected Porter as Sarahs guardian before oil was discovered on her land, newspapers soon picked up the story that the Rector family was still living in relative poverty while Sarahs white guardian was making a killing off her oil. I purchased the book of The Richest Colored Girl. This home-place was a stately stone house. Beckys land was in Okfuskee County, and Sarah and Joe, Jr. ended up with parcels 50 miles northwest of Taft. Home | About | Contact | Copyright | Report Content | Privacy | Cookie Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap. [4] Sarah Rector died in 1967 from a stroke at the age of 65. Sarahs land was near a bend along the Cimarron River valued at around $500. Rector Family PhotographSarah Rector moved to Kansas City in 1917, where she finished high school and stayed for the rest of her life. Connecting Oklahoma's Electric Cooperative Communities, Mailing Address: That equates to $7,000 $8,000 today. [3] Rector and her family relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, and settled in a large stone American foursquare home located at 2000 East 12th Street that still stands today. The most important part of this saga is the simple fact that her family got lost within the tabloids tabloids worldwide that painted a picture of a poor little black girl from Oklahoma who slept on dirt floors, struck it rich, was taken advantage of and lived frivolously. and last updated 8:53 PM, Mar 02, 2021 KANSAS CITY, Mo. It is important to hear from those directly concerned, rather than base research solely on archival material like newspaper clippings. WebWhen 11-year-old Sarah Rector in Jim Crow America discovers a seemingly worthless plot of land she has inherited is worth millions, everything in her life changes and the walls begin to close in. Jerome Kerviel is the poorest person on the planet. Brown assumes so. She drove a green and black Cadillac, later adding a silver-plated Lincoln and a chauffer-driven Rolls Royce. All rights reserved 2022 Collective Culture. A trillionaire is an individual with a net worth equal to at least one trillion in U.S. dollars or a similarly valued currency, such as the euro or the British pound. The facts, including that Rectors themselves had selected Porter, a family friend, went unacknowledged. Meet Sarah Rector, the 11-Year-Old Who Became The Richest Black Girl in America in 1913. Rector now received an income of $300. Her memory of Aunt Sister is all about family. Will King Charles IIIs Reign See the End of the Commonwealth? Jones drilled a well on the property which produced a "gusher" that began to bring in 2,500 barrels (400m3) of oil a day. Many of the Black people who accompanied the tribes lived in slavery until 1866, after treaties with the federal government abolished the ownership of people on tribal lands. The family didnt leave Kansas City as some like to report; five generations of Rector descendants still call this place home. The Rector children attended school in Taft, an all-Black town. Waters had been corresponding with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Children's Bureau over concerns regarding the mismanagement of Rector's estate. Kerford Funeral Home. Even as tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly relocated northwest to Indian Territory from 1831 to 1850 in the genocidal journey known as The Trail of Tears, the tribes largely sided with the Confederate states during the Civil War. Sarah Rector was buried in Taft Cemetery, Oklahoma. At the turn of the 20th century, the Indian Territory was the countrys biggest oil producer. Women of Power Summit Euston published her myth-busting piece about Rector in 2019 on her history blog, The New Santa Fe Trailer. In 1913, an oil driller discovered a gusher that produced a reported 2,500 barrels per day. Then her best friend, model Sara Recor (at the time married to music manager Jim Recor), fell for Fleetwood and began an affair with him whilst Nicks and Fleetwood were still together. WebSarah Kay Ferguson Avila went to be with her Lord and Saviour on September 27, 2014 in Oklahoma City. Thats the way she would put it. After learning about Sarah Rector, read about Mansa Musa, who may have been the richest person ever. Defeated, he sobbed all the way to Dallas on a train where he ended up in Baylor Hospital. Rector died at the age of 65 on July 22, 1967. Oh my goodness! She can afford it. She never said she was rich.. 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. But as Self Made shows, their marriage deteriorated as she grew successful, and they divorced in 1910. After the Stock Market Crash, a major dent was put into the finances of the Rector family. Nicks says her romantic escapades have been so amazing that she would be okay with never dating again. At some point, the mansion was sold and Rector moved into a more modest house. 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. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. She also owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and restaurant in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and 2,000 acres of land. How the author stumbled on Sarahs story is included in this spellbinding presentation of an early America and real-life mysteries. This ended up not being true entirely but Sarah and her siblings were soon sent to school in Taft. 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. 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. They moved to a modern cottage with five bedrooms and owned a car. She was born in an almost all-black town called Taft in Oklahoma, a land that was considered at the time an Indian Territory. The town belonged to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and was one of several all-Black towns set up specifically for descendants of Africans enslaved by the Nation prior to the Civil War. She had three boys. When the Indian territory where Rector was born became Oklahoma in 1907, the federal government granted each member of the Creek Nation a land allotment, including descendants of people enslaved by the Nation like four-year-old Sarah Rector. [10] John Rector's father, Benjamin McQueen, was enslaved by Reilly Grayson, who was a Creek Indian. Couple Whose Gender Reveal Party Triggered A Catastrophic Forest Fire Now Face Charges, Inside The Gruesome Murder Of Mark Kilroy At The Hands Of A Satanic Cult, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. The granddaughter of the LOral founder, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers was the wealthiest woman in the world as of March 2021. National ArchivesA typical cabin for Creek Freedmen on Muscogee (Creek) Nation land in Oklahoma, similar to where Sarah Rector would have been born. That year Rector married Kenneth Campbell, and the couple had three sons, Kenneth, Jr., Leonard, and Clarence. In 1902, young Sarah Rector was born into this world, the second eldest of Joe and Rose Rectors nine children. (Bolden said she found the disputed book cover photo in The American magazine. 1901), Sarah (b. Unfortunately, Rector lost a majority of her wealth during The Great Depression and moved out of her mansion on 12th Street to 2440 Brooklyn Avenue. The couple had three children and though over a decade of marriage enjoyed the status of being local royalty. She owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, businesses, and a 2,000-acre piece of prime river bottomland. This home-place was a stately stone house. In 1913, an independent driller, B.B. Her guardian, T.J. Porter, was a family friend, and although rumors spread that he was mismanaging Sarahs money, an NAACP investigation proved the claims false. Their backward and insistent narrative has even taken them to resort to legal shenanigans to maintain their speech and benefit from it. According to the Amsterdam News, Rector and her family sought to end Porters guardianship and were ultimately successful. What happened to Sarah Rectors money? The two photos side-by-side, one of a child in a plaid dress and the other of a woman with her hair pulled simply back, have been timelessly interpreted to be the richest black girl in America, Sarah Rector the very same Sarah Rector who lived out the majority of her life in Kansas City. 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. [4] In June of that year, a special agent for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), James C. Waters Jr., sent a memo to Du Bois regarding her situation. She would start receiving gifts, requests from loans, and even marriage proposals, some of them by german men, according to the tabloid press. By the time she turned 18, Rector was worth an estimated $1 million, or about $11 million today. That same year, Rector enrolled in the Childrens House, a boarding school for teenagers atTuskegee InstituteinAlabama. If you're 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.Although initially the land seemed useless, "a misplaced band-aid on In 1914, an African American Journal called The Chicago Defender, published a set of articles on Sarah Rector and her fortune after her name was becoming more and more popular. Whats the Future of the Manufacturing Industry? The land became part of the famous Cushing-Drumright Oil Field and it propelled Rector into both spotlight and scandal. But the land given to the Freedmen was of generally inferior quality rocky and unfit for farming, hardly worth the tax burden. But she had also intentionally chosen to omit Pope-Turnbos role.. How do I change the view of my contacts in outlook? Some of these statements are partially true, but the true story of Sarah should be told through her family. Rector and her siblings went to school in Taft, an all-black town closer than Twine, they lived in a modern five-room cottage, and they owned an automobile. Sarah was born on October 23, 1974 in Woodward, Oklahoma to John L. and Carol (Machacek) Ferguson. Then check out the 10 richest people of all time. The Rector Mansion use to belong to Sarah Rector, the richest 12-year-old Black American at that time. Both of Sarahs grandfathers had fought with the Union Army during the Civil War, and when Indian Territory became Oklahoma in 1907 the Dawes Allotment Act divided Creek lands among tribal members and their former slaves. Soon, the NAACP and W.E.B. Registry of Corporate Directors. This version has been corrected. She sued her enslaver for reparations and won. TimesMojo is a social question-and-answer website where you can get all the answers to your questions. Du Bois is said to have written directly to the county judge who oversaw Rectors affairs for more information. Sarahs cut per day was $300. Rector became a millionaire after oil was drilled on her land. The White-owned newspapers, seemingly unconstrained by facts and at times human decency, were openly racist in their coverage. Muscogee Judge Leahy wrote back and confirmed that Porter received less than two percent of Sarahs total income, that the Rectors lived in a new, fully-furnished five-room cottage, and that Sarah and her sister were set to attend a boarding school run by Booker T. Washington. [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]. 1901-1967), a native of Oklahoma and a woman known as the first black female millionaire to live in Kansas City, lived in this American foursquare at 2000 East 12th Street. WebWho was Sara Rector and how did she become wealthy? According to Tonya Bolden, author of Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America (Harry N. Abrams; $21.95), Rector began earning more than $300 a day in 1913. Sarah Rector wasnt living near Taft, or in Tuskegee, Bolden concluded. It was considered inferior infertile soil, not suitable for farming, with better land being reserved for white settlers and members of the tribe. But she was also on a dual mission: She had packed two small black-and-white photographs of Aunt Sister to hand to the right authority at the African American Museum in D.C. We were going to present them and say, This is the record. Sarah and her mother were known for their fancy Cadillacs, Lincolns and a Rolls Royce limo they raced around town. Shes Not Madeleine: Scotland Yard Refutes Julias Allegations of Being Madeleine McCann. She had five siblings. Moreover, Sarahs parents, Joseph and Rose, were also forced to pay a land tax of $30 per year on their daughters property. Despite the wealth and businesses Sarah and her family ran, the Great Depression would take a toll on her fortune making her lose almost all her wealth. The Wichita BeaconNewspaper articles about Sarah Rector spread throughout America and were filled with the casual racism of the era. Soon, the wells, which would come to number in the dozens, were pumping 2,500 gallons a day, with about $300 a day a 12.5 percent cut flowing Sarahs way, Bolden writes. When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and Shed yet to become a millionaire, crossing that threshold at about 18, with oil earnings that would be worth $14 million today. Sarah Ferguson says the late Queen was her 'total idol' and 'put you at ease straightaway' - and admits when her corgis 'bark at nothing' she 'believes it's the monarch Oklahoma City, OK 73154-1309, Portraits of African American businesswoman Sarah Rector | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Rector became instantly wealthy. WebBorn as the daughter of freedmen in 1902, Sarah Rector rose from humble beginnings to reportedly become the wealthiest black girl in America. Who is the richest black actor in the world? ABOUT Sarah Rector was 11 when oil was discovered on her land in Oklahoma in 1913. Aboriginal American member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, "Remembering Sarah Rector, Creek Freedwoman", "The African-Native American Genealogy Blog", "Sarah Rector The Richest Black Girl In The World", "The Unlikely Baroness | This Land Press - Made by You and Me", "United Inner City Services Hope Murals Bring Attention to the Rector House", "Black History Month From the Archives Sarah Rector: The Richest Colored Girl in the World", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Rector&oldid=1142217379, American businesspeople in the oil industry, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 04:11. The family resided in this home until shortly after the Stock Market Crash where it was then purchased by the Adkins Funeral Home. Crystal click on the link The New Santa Fe Trailer for a longer more in depth story. Rector was about 16 then and not half-Creek. In 1887, the state declared the Dawes Allotment Act, which established that all Creek Freedmen minors had to be granted land. Which Teeth Are Normally Considered Anodontia? Women of Power TECH, PODCASTS Although the image can be traced to the 1915 issue of the The American magazine, a now-defunct White-owned publication, Brown insists it is not her aunt. Can someone update her wikipedia page with the right photo at least. Was Sarah Rector the first black millionaire? Much was publicized about her extravagant spending on luxuries. Her sudden wealth became the object of racist news coverage. But will go back to this in a moment. Soon after arriving to Kansas City, the Rectors bought a sprawling stone foursquare at the corner of 2000 East 12th Street. Rumors even claimed that she was a white immigrant girl that was being kept in poverty. More intriguing, what happened to this young African American woman who was part of the Creek [Indian] freedmen? Whether youre a lifelong resident of D.C. or you just moved here, weve got you covered. Nicks herself had an affair with Mick Fleetwood in early 1978 while he was married to Jenny Boyd. The investments and payments to Sarah were overseen by Judge Thomas Leahy, who, by accounts of the time, was one of Muskogee Countys most honorable men. He wrote of her white financial guardian: Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner and by people of her own race, instead of by a member of a race which would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded a good yard dog?
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