Oklahoma Journeys

Week of August 1, 2009

Green Corn Rebellion, 1917

This week on Oklahoma Journeys, Oklahoma farmers are taking it to the streets! When the First World War broke out in 1914, most Americans thought the United States should remain neutral. When America did enter the war in 1917 a lot of people protested, and some Oklahoma farmers took matters into their own hands. It’s the Green Corn Rebellion this week on Oklahoma Journeys.

From the Oklahoma History Center, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.

For many residents of Oklahoma the entry of the United States into the conflict now called World War One was not welcome news. A large number of Oklahomans felt that what was going on in Europe was not our business, and we should stay out of it. For the poverty stricken tenant farmers of rural Oklahoma, some of whom belonged to a clandestine radical group, the Working Class Union, it made no sense to risk life and limb in a conflict that was bound only to make the rich richer and the poor people injured or dead. The conflict, these people felt, was like all other conflicts: a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.

When the federal government enacted the draft, rumors of an armed rebellion began to circulate around southeastern Oklahoma. Rumors turned to reality with the ambush of the Seminole County sheriff and his deputy on August 2, 1917. Simultaneously Working Class Union members also began cutting telegraph and telephone lines, burning bridges, and supposedly dynamiting oil pipelines. This activity was all a preplanned beginning for an armed march on Washington to protest the war and the draft. According to testimony from witnesses and participants, those involved had stockpiled weapons, recruited members and planned to forage off of the land as they marched, gathering an army of recruits along the way. Estimates have put the number of people involved at anywhere between two and thirty-five thousand.

In many ways the plan didn’t work out as expected, and the march on Washington D.C. never really made it out of Oklahoma. On August 3rd, the day after the ambush, Working Class Union members gathered on a farm in Pontotoc County to begin their march but were surprised instead by the attack of a seventy-member posse. The end result was several dead, dozens wounded and over 430 people arrested. Most of those apprehended were released with only a small number sentenced to time in prison. The Green Corn Rebellion provided conservative leaders in the state with a much-desired excuse to crack down on a number of diverse groups including labor unions and various political parties most of whom had nothing at all to do with the insurrection.

Many historians, however, see the rebellion as an act of desperation driven by poverty, frustration and anger. These tenant farmers were desperate for help; they were starving in ever increasing amounts of debt and were receiving no aid from any of the state’s political leaders. Left to their own devices this group turned to the only thing they thought would bring help, a march on Washington.

The Green Corn Rebellion is just a part of the fascinating history of our 46th State. You can learn more about the rebellion and early politics in Oklahoma by visiting the Oklahoma History Center on NE 23rd Street, just east of the state capitol in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma History Center, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.