Thanks to my alert niece, I learned that one of my colleagues, Tonya Bolden, was on the brink of a significant literary event. A film based on her book, “Searching for Sarah Rector,” was released November 7 through Amazon’s MGM Studios. Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (“10,000 Black Men Named George”) and co-written with his wife Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, it was done in conjunction with several co-executive producers, including NFL quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife Ciara.
Who is Sarah Rector?
You would know the answer to this question if you were among the lucky few at the special screening of “Sarah’s Oil.” In 1913, Sarah was 11 years old when she became one of the nation’s first Black millionaires. I first heard about this incredible piece of fortune from Bolden’s book and published a review of it in the Amsterdam News in 2014. I was given additional impetus when I learned that Sarah was born in Taft, Okla., an all-Black town — and my wife’s birthplace.
Bolden’s account is riveting, and it’s easy to see why her version was chosen as the guide to the film. Here is a portion of my account from 2014:
“Sarah was born in 1902 in Taft, then part of Indian Territory. She first gained national attention from an article published in the Chicago Defender. ‘The Richest Child of the Race Mysteriously Disappears,’ the article announced. ‘Where is Sarah Rector?’ is the question that pops up several times in the article, but it is only in the last paragraph that there is any indication of why she is the richest Black girl in America. “Apparently, Rector’s family received a land allotment as a member of the Creek Nation when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Rector’s take in all this, eventually, was forty acres, and in 1911, the land was leased by a major oil company. She, or at least her guardians, received $160 an acre. Soon, there was another lease on the land, but only half as much as the previous one, Bolden noted. After oil wells sprang up around her property in Taft, it was only a matter of time before she, too, would experience a gusher. It came in 1913. “A local newspaper reported that Rector’s well was producing 2,500 barrels of oil a day, or 105,000 gallons. ‘With the price of crude oil about a buck a barrel, that was more than $300 a day for Sarah,’ Bolden wrote. The money was flowing in, but not until she was 18 would any of it be hers to spend. In fact, according to one story in the Defender in 1913, Rector was forced to live in a shack. “The front-page story was also upset that Rector’s guardian was a white man; her family, too, was accused of being ‘ignorant.’ Fortunately, the court stepped in to protect her accumulating wealth, and her guardian built her a decent home. Meanwhile, she and her riches were the source of countless news stories, and she began receiving requests for donations and marriage proposals. The publicity became a burden, and this may have prompted her sudden disappearance.”
I will add to this account once I’ve seen the film and see how deeply it delves into her later years, particularly after she lost most of her wealth during the Great Depression. In 1934, she married William Crawford, a restaurant owner. They remained together until her death in 1967.
I know for a fact that the Amsterdam News has evolved from a newspaper that featured mug shots ( 65+ years ago ) when my grandmother purchased it weekly and later was truly the a.k.a. the Black Dispatch. The article on Sarah Rector could be the basis for a series of lessons in black wealth through land ownership.