Sarah Rector just one of the many lost stories of Black Wealth in the 1900's

Here's a small story to keep you going for the day. The dusty plains of Glenpool, Oklahoma, stretched endlessly under the summer sun, their dry soil offering little promise. For 12-year-old Sarah Rector, the land her family owned was a quiet burden. It was a plot of 160 acres, given to her as part of the Dawes Allotment Act. The soil was hard, unsuited for farming, and the taxes on the land loomed over her family like a shadow. Sarah’s parents, Tom and Rose, did what they could. They leased the land to the Standard Oil Company, hoping it might bring some relief. But no one expected what happened next. One cold February morning in 1913, an oilman named B.B. Jones struck a well on Sarah’s land. A geyser of oil erupted from the earth, and within days, the barren plot turned into one of Oklahoma’s richest oil fields. The news spread quickly: Sarah Rector, a young Black girl, was earning $300 a day—a fortune in 1913 and the equivalent of over $7,000 today. As barrels of oil flowed, so d...