Biography
A Newspaper Built on Credit
Andrew Jackson Smitherman, known as A. J. Smitherman, was born in 1883 in Alabama. By April 1913 he had established the Tulsa Star in Greenwood, arriving with very little cash and obtaining his printing equipment on credit, according to Barbara Seals Nevergold's study of his life in The Chronicles of Oklahoma. J. B. Stradford befriended the young publisher and provided a short-term loan that helped the paper get established.
Contributions to Greenwood
The Tulsa Star became one of Greenwood's most important institutions. Between 1916 and 1919 Smitherman also published the Tulsa Daily Star alongside it. He used his pages to defend Black voting rights, challenge corruption and demand equal treatment under the law, giving the district a strong, independent public voice.
Smitherman's advocacy went beyond print. In 1918 he led a group of Black men to Bristow, Oklahoma, to prevent a lynching, and was briefly held by the mob before escaping. He served on the reception committee for President Woodrow Wilson's 1919 visit and took part in the governor's interracial conference in 1920 — evidence of his standing as a civic leader.
The 1921 Massacre
During the massacre, Smitherman's home and his newspaper enterprise were destroyed. His wife and five children escaped Tulsa. In the aftermath, a grand jury indicted Smitherman, his brother John and J. B. Stradford for inciting the violence. An indictment is an accusation, not proof: no evidence has shown that the Black leaders of Greenwood caused the destruction of their own community.
Writing the Record
Smitherman also answered the destruction with his pen. His writing included a poetic eyewitness account of the burning of Greenwood, discussed in Nevergold's 2011 study. He spent his later years outside Oklahoma and continued his work in journalism; he died in 1961.
What the Record Shows
Smitherman's exact birth date and birthplace, the full route of his exile after 1921, and the details of his later newspaper career deserve confirmation against the complete Nevergold study and contemporary records before they are stated precisely.
Historical Legacy
A. J. Smitherman's Tulsa Star gave Greenwood an independent press that defended voting rights and equal justice.
Digitized issues of the Tulsa Star survive in the Oklahoma Historical Society's newspaper collections, preserving a first-hand Black perspective on Tulsa before 1921.
Greenwood Rising includes Smitherman among the pioneers it interprets, and his family's recollections are preserved in published scholarship.
