Both blacks and whites were arrested and blacks were hustled off to detention centres. By June 2, order had been restored. Shocked by the violence and anxious to avoid sullying their city's reputation, white Tulsans immediately embarked on an exercise in collective amnesia. There was a curtain of silence that descended after the riot. Most of the black riot dead were quickly buried, without paperwork.
Witnesses talk of bodies dumped into unmarked graves in the city-owned cemetery.
The death toll was put at 35 and the blame for the disturbance was placed on the blacks. Mr. Rowland was freed. Over the years most of the records dealing with the riot conveniently disappeared. The National Guard files for those days in 1921 are missing. In archive editions of the Tribune, the two articles that called for Mr. Rowland's death are neatly cut out and the commission has been unable to find a copy of the lynching editorial.