Oddly enough when looking at the early days of the wild areas of Oklahoma City there is proof of early entreprenuerial women who flaunted societal limitations and restrictions. They were the "Bad Girls", women who made livings, bought land and property, and had sometimes an immense amount of influence.
For many parts of old Hell's Half Acre those women were Mable Warren, Eva Ryan, Anne Wynn Bailey and many other "madams."
For a segregated time, as that was largely on the surface at any rate, that meant that there was an African American community that operated in tandem serving a different section of the population. In theory, that is, because there is ample evidence that in vice the "color line" was not always strictly adhered to in a manner some would have liked to believe.
A "Kitty Hart" may have been an early madame in the area East of Front Street and Grand Avenue (modern Sheridan). This area on the east side of the tracks was a wilder and more robust region where the law was a little bit in question for many months and even years. The area of Bricktown was first reserved for Federal troops who were brought in keep the peace pre and post the Land Run of April 22, 1889. Then it was taken over by the railroads and factories. It was often a place where "outlaws" who did not like crowds ended up. Knifing, beatings, and various other violence occurred there.
Mid to late 1890's a larger than life figure emerges as a leader of vice among the African American community springing up in the eastern section. She was called the Queen of Avenue A, probably as an insult of her role as a less than savory element and possibly also as a racial epitaph. The greater Oklahoma City was being settled by two opposing elements: one group tended to settle and establish businesses north of Grand Avenue and the other South of California. The northern group tended, in its vision of growing a vital business center tended to have a live and let live view of all vice. Visitors wanted a drink, a fine time, and the best the town could offer and so the town should provide those things. The southern group, many from Kansas, tended to be more anti-drink and immorality in any form. Into this group also came a lot of people with very "southern views" concerning the races. These two will butt heads along political and social lines for decades.
Who was this "Queen of Avenue A"? The British were fighting against a growing and truly worthy opponent in South Africa at the time and articles of the fearsome fighting force of the Zulu tribesmen were common reading material. It may be natural that the often fierce Martha Fleming would earn the title "Old Zulu." It could also be just another of many racist labels.
Her name was Martha Fleming, but every one called her "Old Zulu", and
she ran the prostitution in African-American Oklahoma City until about
1909. Born in Virginia, there is little else known about this woman other
than the sometimes slanted accounts reported in local news articles and
court records. She is profiled, again with a harsh biased brush, in McGill's
early, agenda-driven, account of the rough and rowdy early days of
Oklahoma City. She apparently was the dominant figure who kept the
girls on "Alabaster Row" (believed to be the local brothels catering to
African American men located on California Street) in line, operated in
her own establishment, ran for a time (it is believed ) a covy of women criminals who would accost men, free them of their monetary burdens, and sometimes bean them! She is believed to have worked in an area once considered outside the city limits, that area east of the
railroad tracks on Grand Ave. (now known as Sheridan) down through 2nd Street.
"Zulu" or "Zoo",as she was sometimes called, seems to emerge in the
early days of the town. She was believed to be a either a pawn or a
collaborator of a much reviled Madame "Big Anne" (Anne Wynn Bailey).
Thus, depending on which side of that relationship one falls, she is seen as either a link to the African American vice and the
money that could be made there by the nefarious Big Anne or as mirror professional who functioned
in a similar capacity in a different realm (in keeping with the segregated reality of the times).
Whichever was the truth,
together, these two women managed a sizeable portion of the action to be found in
Oklahoma City's "Hell's Half Acre." Her regular domain, the area of east
Grand, just past the Santa Fe Depot may have been used by a variety of
individuals for multiple purposes. The area, just after the run and for a
long time later, was outside of town limits and thus beyond the
sometimes inept or politically motivated city police force.
The south side of "Hell" was called "Alabaster Row" and it generally
assumed this was a line of establishments with African-American or
non-white women and customers. This may be true in full or in part. Not enough
objective evidence has been seen by this writer yet to define it
strictly along those lines. It is known, from establishments and
writings from other locations (Leadville and San Francisco, etc.) that
'alabaster' was sometimes a term used to describe these women of the
night. No matter what race. They were sometimes likened to marble statues of loveliness and
perfection. In fact one early source does indicate there were "statues" along California in front of one wild place (thought be Clark's Saloon).
There could have been a little of both involved here. It
does seem strange that such a line of houses would exist on California
to the south and most identify "Old Zulu's" domain as the E. Grand Ave.
area across the tracks. It may be there were two groups catering to
altogether different clienteles. Many of the gambling, drinking, or
carousing dens in "Hell" were a broad spectrum selection. Low dives
rubbed shoulders with fine Belgian carpets and cheap 'rot-gut' was just
across the street from full bodied wines of the finest label. The
outside of town places - east of the tracks - are believed to have catered to individuals who could not
afford (or did not wish) to come into town, for economic, comfort, or recognition
reasons.
Most newspaper and early descriptions seem to agree that Martha was a
tall woman of tremendous strength. She stood approximately 6 feet and was considered by many to be too aggressive in those Victorian times to be attractive. She
always carried a pistol (a hogleg) on her from a belt holster, and usually wore a dress. She
sometimes wore a man's jacket and work boots.
She appeared via the newspapers to be many
things from petty thief, to drunk, to drug user, political activist, and
con artist. What ever she might have become, her Achilles heel was
clearly from modern understandings, an addiction. She was known to get a little energetic while
under the influence of liqueur or heroin/cocaine. One instance, it took
several full grown police officers to get her to the tank to sleep off
her over indulgence and she once tore up the jail and wounded another
prisoner before she finally came down from the high of the stimulant.
Oklahoma at the time did not have a prison, so prisoners were sent out of state to Kansas. In early 1907, she was sent to Kansas for a two year sentence but was part of an early release arranged by the Kansas governor in view of the pending statehood. Later, in November, Martha would be baptized in the Canadian River after a revival at the Pentecostal Mission downtown. Although some would make fun of the fact she was back in front of a judge for being under the influence in coming months, today we can understand the difficulties faced by someone battling an addiction.
Descriptions of these women can prove as fascinating and insightful as a
photograph. They say alot about how society viewed "these type of women": "Big Annie", as a women in her early forties, was drawn in local papers as a fleshy,
mean-faced, man-like woman used to pushing her weight around to keep
control in Oklahoma City. Social attitudes are apparent in the artistic
renderings of her during a famous legal contest in 1908.
Likewise,
social attitudes are prevalent in the label given Martha, she was tall,
powerful, and wild. So, of course as a woman of vice and color she was a "barbarian", she was comic figure of drink and drug, and she was "other" in a community seeking to acquire self-esteem and worth as a new upstart in the nation. The unrest in Africa at the time provided a new
vocabulary as the Zulu army battled European armies for dominance. It was important to rob her of dignity in the same way Anne Wynn Bailey was robbed of dignity. Added to the label of vice were the trappings of racism and so for many she became the archetypal savage black woman and while not aged, "Old Zulu."
In both
instances, part of the problem was they were women operating out of the
acceptable boundaries of society, women acting independently and having
some level of success. Lessor issues had to do with race and addictive
behaviors aligned with perceptions of social status. In both women
society had outcasts due to the work they did and so less focus was on
the race of either woman.
The truth of the matter is that the earliest and best known entrepreneurial women of Oklahoma City were women of independence, strength, intelligence, and sometimes, bad luck. Despite her circumstances, her time, and her own personal challenges, Martha Fleming carved out a unique place in the annals of early day Oklahoma. She was, in every sense of the word, one of a kind.
