She married her second husband, William Crawford, and lived a relatively quiet life. Jerome Kerviel is the poorest person on the planet. 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. Each freedman was given 160 acres of land. How Sarah Rector Became The Richest Black Girl In America In The Early 20th Century. The Rector children attended school in Taft, an all-Black town. Three sisters, now in their 60s and 70s, sat down with 41 Action News Anchor Kevin Holmes to talk For their part, Black-owned newspapers, including the influential Chicago Defender, speculated anxiously that Rectors White guardian was taking advantage of her and shortchanging her education. Her parents, Joseph Rector and his wife, Rose McQueen (both born 1881) were African descendants of the Creek Nation Creek Indians before the Civil war. Who was the first richest black woman in America? That same year, Rector enrolled in the childrens house, a boarding school for teenagers at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Many Freedmen eked out a living raising corn, cotton and other common crops. The Muskogee Cimeter, a black Oklahoma newspaper declared, It takes an awful big man to give the Negro a square deal and Muskogees judge is such a man.. Shortly thereafter, he died and was buried in Blackjack Cemetery in Taft. When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and Du Bois to become concerned about her welfare. In turn, Joe was able to talk his wife (allegedly) into paying his $8,000 bond plus $2,000 in expenses to go to Tampico, Mexico and get his half. 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. Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle are privately owned by the Queen. 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. Likely in order to escape scrutiny and not wanting to be the target of some greedy partys act, Sarahs family secretly slipped away and moved north to Kansas City by 1917. Mama Rose, as her family called her, was in charge of Sarahs money until she was able to get control at the age of 20. Likely in order to escape scrutiny and not wanting to be the target of some greedy partys act, 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. By the time Sarah was 18, she was worth well over one million dollars. [4], Rector was already a millionaire by the time she had turned 18 in 1920. Mollie McQueen, Sarahs paternal great-great-grandmother, was enslaved by Creek Chief Opothleyahola in Alabama. But she had also intentionally chosen to omit Pope-Turnbos role.. DuBois. Oh my goodness! She died in 1967 at age 65 and was buried in Taft. Why Do Cross Country Runners Have Skinny Legs? In January 1914, the newspaper wrote,Oil Made Pickaninny Rich Oklahoma Girl With $15,000 A Month gets Many Proposals Four White Men in Germany Want to Marry the Negro Child That They Might Share Her Fortune. Meanwhile, the Savannah Tribune wrote,Oil Well Produces Neat Income Negro Girls $112,000 A Year. Sarah's father Joseph was the son of John Rector, a Creek Freedman. Her siblings all took on jobs- her mother even for a time went back to working as a maid. Even after Sarah and Becky left for Alabama for better schooling, the newspapers reported that they were living in a tent. Did Joe and Rose Rector move the family to Kansas City to escape the violent fate that befell too many oil-rich Natives and Freedmen? 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. Sarah Rector was born in 1902 to a freed black couple, Rose McQueen and Joseph Rector. Jones struck a gusher on Sarahs land that produced 2,500 barrels a day, which gave Sarah a whopping daily income of $300. Sales Partnership Solutions If theres a lesson for others in her legacy, its in the importance of financial literacy, she said. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was considered inferior infertile soil, not suitable for farming, with better land being reserved for white settlers and members of the tribe. Although historical accounts clash, Sarah Rector is believed to be Americas second black millionaire after Madam C.J. Rector began to receive a daily income of $300 from this strike. This was a burden that became so great that Joseph attempted to sell Sarahs land, but was blocked from doing so by state law, which forbade the sale of lands belonging to minors. As the richest self-made Black woman on this list, Oprah Winfreys contributions to both pop culture as a whole and the advancement of Black women, in particular, cannot be overstated. Her and her familys net worth was estimated at 73.6 billion U.S. dollars. The truth: At the time, Rector was living with both her parents in a two-room cabin. The courts again sided with Rector, ruling that since she had managed her property with such astuteness that she needs no guardian.. A Fairfax County (Virginia) School Board member last week said World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima "set the record" for what "human evil is capable of" and it was far from the only controversial statement Abrar Omeish has uttered. 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. The chief of the tribe, an Alabama-born man named Opothle Yohola (1778-1863), was one of these leaders who owned slaves. How do I change the view of my contacts in outlook? On Browns visit to the D.C. area, she set out with Riffle for the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture bearing the faded photographs of Rector as a woman. Kansas City, Missouri Evidently the color of an heiress does not matter if the color of her gold is genuine, wrote Edward Curd, Sarahs attorney. By the time she was 11, her portion of the familys land was earning more than 300,000 a year, drawing both suitors and global attention despite her age. In October 1914, Rector enrolled at the Childrens House, a boarding school for teens at Tuskegee Institute. Defeated, he sobbed all the way to Dallas on a train where he ended up in Baylor Hospital. Cover photo: These photos are commonly used when telling the story of Sarah Rector, however her descendants claim these are not her. He also concluded that the men that wrote her were fine looking chaps.. At 18, Rector came fully into her wealth, free now of guardians. 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. In return for that and otherwise assimilating to Anglo-American culture, White Southerners often called them the Five Civilized Tribes.. Additionally, Joe and Rose now had a daughter who was transformed as a little black girl from Taft to a millionaire headline overnight. Brown returned the images to the envelope. Her final resting place in the ground was back where the story beginsin Taft, in a peaceful parcel of land known as Blackjack Cemetery. They have sat back quietly as the rumors about their family recirculate every so often, as that false photo of Sarah is placed at the top of newspaper headlines and social media posts. In 1913, the independent oil driller B.B. B.E. 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. Booker T. Washington even reportedly visited their home. 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. Her parents were African American members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. [14], Soon after moving to Kansas City, when she was 17 or 18, she married local businessman Kenneth Campbell in 1920. Her fortune took a hit during the Great Depression, but she still owned properties in Kansas City and Oklahoma until her death from a stroke in 1967. 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' Wanting to have the real scoop on Sarah, the Defender published an article claiming that she was an uneducated girl dressed in rags raised by ignorant parents who had given a white man all rights to her state. Sarah Rector was born in 1902 near the all-black town of Taft, located in the eastern portion of Oklahoma, in what was then Indian Territory. Sarah Rector, Kansas Citys First Black Millionairess, was known in Kansas City for her fairy tale ascension to money and fame, fine living at Rector Mansion, and reported entertaining of African American celebrities such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Louis, and Jack Johnson. When she began attending Tuskegee Institutes Childrens School at the suggestion of Booker T. Washington, a guard managed to prevent her abduction by a group intending to hold her for ransom. Rector, with the familys signature round face, looked nothing like the girl with the more angular chin in the picture, said Brown, who first caught sight of the photo online in 2010. They had a lavish life and were part of the elite of the time. TimesMojo is a social question-and-answer website where you can get all the answers to your questions. 2022 - 2023 Times Mojo - All Rights Reserved [11], As news of Rector's wealth spread worldwide, she began to receive requests for loans, money gifts, and marriage proposals, despite the fact that she was only 12 years old. A guardian was appointed to manage young Sarahs income, and a judge oversaw the guardian. The rags-to-riches story made its way around the world, with American newspapers reporting that several German youth wrote Leahy requesting the childs hand in marriage. WebSarah Kay Ferguson Avila went to be with her Lord and Saviour on September 27, 2014 in Oklahoma City. Yet the possibility of riches teased the imagination as landholders throughout Oklahoma began striking oil. But, as we mentioned at the beginning, the hypocrisy of racism would soon make its appearance. Their backward and insistent narrative has even taken them to resort to legal shenanigans to maintain their speech and benefit from it. Registry of Corporate Directors. Wikimedia CommonsThrough sheer chance Sarah Rector became one of the richest children in America. 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. By October 1913, 11-year-old Sarah received $11,567 in royalties from the gusher. Before her wealth and fame, Moreover, Sarahs parents, Joseph and Rose, were also forced to pay a land tax of $30 per year on their daughters property. (Bolden said she found the disputed book cover photo in The American magazine. Were no interviews or oral histories ever conducted and recorded with Ms Rector, her parents or her siblings in their lifetime? Selena Hill is the Digital Editor at Black Enterprise and an award-winning multi-media journalist. Sarahs land, totaling 160 acres, was valued at a mere $556.50, roughly $15,000 today. Home | About | Contact | Copyright | Report Content | Privacy | Cookie Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap. and last updated 8:53 PM, Mar 02, 2021 KANSAS CITY, Mo. What happened to Sarah Rectors money? The land allotments were usually rocky and unsuitable for farming, while the more arable lands were sold to white settlers. Besides the white guardianship, given the amount of her wealth, in 1913 the Oklahoma Legislature decided to declare her as a white person in an attempt to keep her business in the territory. At age 20, Rector married Kansas City businessman Kenneth Campbell and had three sons. The richest kid in the world is Prince George Alexander Louis who is worth approximately $1 billion dollars as of today. National ArchivesA typical cabin for Creek Freedmen on Muscogee (Creek) Nation land in Oklahoma, similar to where Sarah Rector would have been born. Rectors spending was legendary, and she routinely drove around town in one of her expensive vehicles. Rector was already a millionaire by the time she had turned 18 in 1920. Du Bois is said to have written directly to the county judge who oversaw Rectors affairs for more information. The devastation of the Tulsa Race Massacre. 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. At $3.50 an acre, she wasnt shouting Im rich! just yet. Pastor Imitates Jesus Christ and Tries to Fast for 40 Days; He Passed of Malnutrition, Shelley, Woolf, and Maas: Three Feminist Writers that Turned Pain into Masterpieces. Du Bois himself got involved, hoping to verify this story and rectify any injustice done to Sarah. A record 13 feet of snow accumulated in the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range by Tuesday evening - the heaviest snow fall since 1985. They said, Whatevers down there, you dont bother with it. Still, after being declared white, Sarah Rector was fully accepted into the elite circles of Oklahoma. As its revealed in the last episode of Self Made, yes, Madam C.J. Washington also intervened to help the Rector family. Shed yet to become a millionaire, crossing that threshold at about 18, with oil earnings that would be worth $14 million today. Decades after the Rectors made Missouri home, Browns parents warned their children never to inquire about their aunts land 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. 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. Upon graduation, she attended the Institute. 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. Some estimates place Sarah Rectors net worth at the time at $1 million, or about $28 million today. This version has been corrected. While her fortune had diminished over time, at her death, she still held considerable investments. 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. The judge also approved money for Rector to attend the childrens school at Tuskegee Institute. Connecting oklahoma's electric cooperative communities. The land became part of the famous Cushing-Drumright Oil Field and it propelled Rector into both spotlight and scandal. Do Men Still Wear Button Holes At Weddings? 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