Boley's bank robbed! - famous 1923 bank robbery in the all-black town of Boley, Oklahoma - includes related article about the history of Boley

level in the worst years of the Depression, Oklahomans, black and white, direct the eyeed forward with joy to Thanksgiving, and 1932 prov no exception. That year, November 24 tendered more than just a day of family gathering. It was also the start of quail season, and while hardly any would have passed up a bird before the season legally render free of accessed shotgun blasts would soon be heard around the state whenever a brood was kicked up.

In Boley individual of Oklahoma's 29 all-black rural towns, the gunfire burst forthed a day early - and one time again put the notorious bank robber Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd upon the front pages of the state's newspapers. In the early '30 Floyd was robbing banks in great number and without compunction. Judg "Public Enemy Number One" through J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, Floyd derive pleasure fromed a reputation for miraculously shooting his way without of police ambushes without a scratch.

on the other hand this is less a story of fair Boy Floyd's escapades, which captured the imagination of Oklahoma; this is a tale of in what way Boley citizens not only shielded themselves against murderous gangsters, on the contrary also shielded their children from notions of inferiority and incidents of racial discrimination (see sidebar).

As Thanksgiving 1932 approached, single of Floyd's henchmen and sum of two units accomplices decided to take down the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley Like everything other in the town, the bank was black-owned, fastening stock and barrel.

George Birdwell, Floyd's right-hand man from March 1931 to November 1932 had knocked above 13 Oklahoma banks with Floyd in 21 month the two men - especially Birdwell, who was considered white allowing he had Choctaw and Cherokee vital current - were familiar with the all-black town of Boley Birdwell lived in nearby Earlsboro, in adjoining Seminole shire He did the talking during the robbery. The white CC Patterson aided Birdwell. Charles "Pete" Glass, an African-American bank-robbing novice who also lived in Earlsboro, flock the getaway car.

In those days, little elaborate planning went into rural bank raids. Robbers flock up, parked outside the bank and left the car running with a driver behind the wheel, marched into the bank, announced their intention, took the standard of value (most often several hundred to a real few thousand dollars), seized bank employee as hostages - whom they would place upon the running boards of their car thus as to forestall the sheriff or the often armed rural citizenry from shooting at them - and departed town. one time safely out of town, the robbers would release the hostages unharmed.

After breakfasting the morning of November 23 in the kitchen of a black farmer living not far from Birdwell's domicile Birdwell and his two companions skip overed into a Ford roadster and brought this plant piece to the bank located upon Boley's Main Street. Birdwell and Glass had seen their last Thanksgiving.

Bursting into the bank with the sawed-off-shotgun-wielding Patterson at his side and a 45 automatic pistol in his hand, Birdwell threw down. "We're robbing this bank!" he roared "Hand over the money, and don't pluck no alarm." As the cashier, WW Riley, and the bank's establisher and president, D.J. Turner, shovel bills and silver dollars toward the robbers and customers gazeed on, Turner tripped the bank's alarm and then added insult to injury through responding to Birdwell's outraged "Did you pluck that alarm?" with "You bet I twitched it!" Turner, too, had seen his last Thanksgiving.

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM! The clash of gunfire and the unforeseen loss of hearing occasioned by means of repeated shots in an enclos area sowed confusion as gymnast fell, mortally wounded with four snails in his chest. Seizing the instant Herbert McCormick, the bank's bookkeeper who had been without of sight in the bank's vault, emerg with the Winchester rifle kept there for of that kind emergencies. He swung the barrel toward the retreating Birdwell and plucked the trigger. From a distance of on the contrary a few feet, the bullet slammed into Birdwell's back, punched [i]or[/i] part of to the other his rib cage, tore from one side his lungs and exited his neck

Spouting life-blood the fatally wounded Birdwell collapsed upon the floor amid the $600 for which he had hazarded his life. As Patterson cried on the outside in anger and dismay, Glass dashed into the bank. While the robbers turn backed McCormick's fire, scooped up dollar bills and ordered sum of two units customers to carry Birdwell to the getaway car, McCormick's brother Langston, who was Boley's sheriff, ran toward the bank, fire-arm drawn.

"I remember I was walking down the street" Langston McCormick later recalled. "It was about 10 o'clock in the morning, and some one ran up to me and said, "The bank's being robbed, the bank's being robbed.' Well, I went above to the American Legion hall and got more [i]or[/i] less rifles and took off down the alley, jumping above fences. By the time I got there, the shooting was on

"I won't say I got single but I kept [the robbers] busy," he adds. Langston was joined by means of armed townsfolk and Boley farmers (many in town to purchase shotgun shells for the morrow's opening of quail season), and a shoot-out upon Main Street erupted.