Early in the 20th century, rural Oklahoma was a very different place.

Quiet farm communities elected socialists to county offices and the state legislature.

in fact, Oklahoma was, at least for a time, a hotbed for socialism or, you know, for other, you know, deemed radical or liberal things.

In August 1917, a ragtag coalition of poor tenant farmers, sharecroppers and renegade socialists rose up in eastern and southeastern Oklahoma.

They planned on a vast army of the oppressed rising with them, marching on Washington to topple the government.

They called it the Green Corn Rebellion.

Seminole County was once the center of an armed insurrection against the U.S.

government.

The dramatic and desperate uprising of poor tenant farmers made front page news across the nation in the summer of 1917, but it's now almost forgotten.

My mother was born right over there.

Ted Eberle grew up near Sasakawa.

His two uncles took part in the rebellion.

He's one of the few who remembers where it took place.

That there’s Spears’ Mountain.

Hill’s what it really is.

Ain't no mountains in this county.

This thing had went on 2 or 3 years or more, you know, and they were gathering people up, trying to build an army.

Socialists are very rare in rural Oklahoma today, and it might surprise many that the heartland of American socialism was once rural Oklahoma.

A century ago, there were more registered socialists in the Sooner State than in New York.

In early Oklahoma, socialism was almost in the mainstream.

Particularly in the, in the farms.

There were several state legislators from the Socialist Party, county officers from the Socialist Party.

That was, Welcome In 1914, Fred Holt, who was the Socialist, candidate for governor, got 20% of the vote, received 20% of the vote in Oklahoma.

it was really building a strong case, strong momentum to become the political power in Oklahoma.

And they even got, you know, school board members and citywide, you know, officials elected.

Typically, socialism is a system where the government or the people own and control land, resources, and industries to prevent economic inequality.

But what took root in Oklahoma was a socialism like no other, one that cherished private farms drew strength from evangelical Christianity and found fertile ground in the middle of America's heartland.

They really went after tenant farmers because, you know, farmers had a lot of grievances against, you know, the people that own the land, how they were treated.

And the unique thing about Oklahoma socialism is they embraced, Jesus teachings, and they used Jesus and Christianity to preach socialism.

Socialism spread statewide, but took root deepest in the southeastern counties where a white landowning elite had built a cotton empire, where they rented their land to tenant farmers, both black and white, who had come chasing the dream of a new life only to find poverty and exploitation.

Tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Were getting crushed.

They felt they were getting pressed by landowners, by their banks, by the railroads.

By droughts, by boll weevils eating their cotton.

And the just the market conditions.

Because, of course, there's this the myth of the, you know, Horatio Alger stories and the the myth that wealth, if one can succeed by only by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, tenant farmers know that that's not really the case.

And the Socialist Party, the socialists, really came in on that.

And they're able to highlight and tell farmers that, no, your your struggles are not because of your own personal failings or any bad luck.

There are systemic issues, systemic things that are keeping you in your place, that are preventing you from realizing the American dream.

Sharecropper.

The poor people.

And they was convincing them that they would be a lot better off if they’d join them, you know.

sharecropping work and blood, sweat and tears.

They they they probably was joining in a hope for a better, better way of life.

Visitors to the southeastern cotton counties described humanity at its lowest possible level of degradation.

Tenant farmers and their families living in crude shacks infested with bedbugs and other parasites.

They were suffering the diseases of malnutrition.

Men, women and children working in the fields up to 18 hours a day.

They were just barely surviving.

And this was even before the Great Depression that this was happening.

And many organizations were kind organizing, coming into Oklahoma, organizing these farmers into unions because they couldn't join regular unions because they weren't wage earners.

And so what workers have as recourse is to organize.

And so this is also the era where you see the rise of of labor unions, the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, the industrial Workers of the world, they also didn't care if your American Indian didn't care if you're African American.

You were going to be part of us that that really grew the Socialist Party.

The concept of socialism is is class over race.

It's, you know, it's the idea of having a, a, a working class that that's operating within the interests of, of all workers.

And so, you know, some African-Americans are drawn to that in several of them, found that answer they felt.

And the working class union, it was a new union that had, been formed in Louisiana just a few years earlier.

The working class union's largest growth occurred in southeastern Oklahoma, especially along the Canadian River.

They sought labor reforms such as the eight hour day and old age pensions, child labor restrictions, workers compensation, free school textbooks and the abolition of rents.

Unlike the socialists and other unions, the WQ did not reject the use of violence.

It was how do we have a cooperative?

How do we work together?

And, but it seemed to get more radical as time went on, Uncle Dunny, they had to give him dynamite, explosives and stuff, and he was rigging them up to blow the trestle on the, west side of the river, the west bank.

And, evidently, through some sort of suspicion or whatever.

The railroad detectives got him.

That's what he went to the penitentiary for, for trying to blow up a railroad bridge over the South Canadian River.

was supposedly to stop the government from coming from that direction with any, what would you say, troops or help or whatever, you know.

In 1915, an outbreak of Texas fever hit cattle herds nationwide.

In September, Knight Riders started dynamiting cattle dipping tanks in Pontotoc, Sequoyah, and Muskogee counties.

State and federal officials ordered mandatory dipping to kill disease carrying ticks using arsenic based solutions, and authorized sheriffs to seize livestock from uncooperative farmers.

Oh.

Sharecroppers and tenants fought back.

felt that the mandating people dipped their cattle to, to get rid of ticks was, killing the cattle or making them sick, and they were rebelling against that.

one way that farmers resisted those was, dynamiting, the dipping vats, not just in Oklahoma, know Arkansas.

There was, you know, there were numerous cases of that happening in Arkansas.

In some cases, it may not be quite as blatant as dynamiting, but you would have businesses of, of night writing where farmers would go out and intimidate officials.

And to again try to prevent those types of things, you know, those types of mandates from being implemented.

As tensions grew, the Socialist Party and the Working Class Union saw their numbers swell to over 20,000.

In Oklahoma.

what lit the fuze was World War One.

And particularly the draft.

The farmers across the country, not just Oklahoma.

And Poor laborers felt this was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

The industrialists, the.

Munitions factories, the, banks, they were going to reap large profits from this war.

They felt, well, they were going to pluck the farm boys away from their work, their farms, where they're needed, and go fighting this war.

Other side of the Earth.

If you dodge the draft, you were a traitor and, these farmers in the unions were dodging the draft.

They were definitely considered traitors.

Even before the rebellion.

they were going to stay out of the war anyway they could.

They they didn't believe in it.

They didn't want to be part of it.

The U.S.

government under President Woodrow Wilson passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, which restricted free speech and made it a crime to interfere with the draft.

Woodrow Wilson gets elected on a campaign pledge.

He kept us out.

Of the war.

Just months later, if you oppose the war, you were a criminal.

Laws had passed.

So how quickly, things change.

And these people that, were socialist, opposed the war suddenly became the enemy.

when it's one of the main tenants to democracy, is being able to to lift your voice in protest and say what you feel is right, but they seem to be put down a lot of times, tenant farmers could turn that right around and say, how am I?

I'm trying to provide for my family.

How am I a coward?

But yeah.

Or another term that was used a lot for people who tried to avoid the draft was was slacker.

And so you see newspaper reports of, you know, of, of, you know, telling people not to be a slacker, you know, to, to register for the draft.

In the fall of 1918, three Oklahoma towns changed their names because of their German origins.

Corn with a k became corn with a C. Bismarck, Oklahoma was changed to Wright and Kyle became loyal.

their parents was from Germany.

Their mother refused to speak this language.

She would only speak German.

Going to go fight 'em?

Going to go fight our kin folks?

I don't think so.

You can understand how they would have felt, you know, about being drafted in.

Go fight over there.

Of course, World War one wasn’t very popular.

the union convinced a lot of these farmers and a lot of the more radical farmers, and they got passionate and they convinced them that they were among a group of people across the country.

They were going to march to Washington to either overthrow the government or change policy or make some changes because they didn't, accept this war and they certainly didn't accept the draft.

And but that split families, it split towns, it split communities.

In the hot July of 1917, men began gathering at the farm of John Spears near Sasakwa in Seminole County.

Right there is known as the Spears Place.

it's, it's where Spears lived.

Right over it.

We had his flag right down right over hill.

Little house still standing over there.

He'd throw that flag up when, when, government people, whatever somehow he got warned.

And they put that flag up.

To tell the rest of them.

You know, they're coming or here or whatever.

several had camped out there and They stole a cow and and cooked it, and and they were getting ready to march.

people.

They were armed.

A lot of them were armed.

Not all of them were armed.

But, yeah, they were armed.

They were going to protect themselves.

the working class union and their, they were going to be violent.

they started cutting telephone lines and telegraph lines.

Burning bridges or attempting to burn bridges, having what they thought were secret meetings to organize this march that had been infiltrated, hiding munitions and.

Supplies so they could, The war, the towns got very scared.

And, Konawa.

Wewoka, Seminole.

They suspected that these.

Radicals were going to invade their towns and, take supplies and munitions and everything to, get the resources they needed to for their march.

everybody wasn't revolt.

But there was a lot of them were scared of them and feared for their families and lives and everything.

And, It was, very disorganized.

The revolt.

You know, they didn't figure on fighting everybody and everything.

And supposedly, that's how the revolt got the name Green Corn Rebellion was, cause they was stripping people's corn fields and gardens and everything else in it.

It was time of the year for roasting ears.

of course, in August of 1917, you know, the corn is not, you know, fully mature yet for, for harvest.

So it still would have been green.

they would essentially live off of the land, you know, they would be able to they, you know, they picked corn, you know, in the evening, they butcher a hog or a cow.

And so they, they'd roast the corn and eat the and eat the pork or the cow.

And Sensing impending catastrophe.

A handful of state socialist leaders raced to stop the misguided march.

Oscar Ameringer, one of the big state leaders, he went to the farm and he told them not to do it.

He said, you're going to destroy the Socialist Party.

You're going to bring bring us down.

Up until August the 2nd, there had been a lot of things brewing.

With the.

Idea that this march.

Was going to take place.

the word got to the law officers.

And so word went out and they were going to gather up.

On, Spears Mountain, near Sasakawa and start their march from there.

And then that morning, they got up, got organized, went to, start generally east northeast Within moments, a line of lawmen and their volunteers stepped in, cutting them off.

Among them were many familiar faces.

They come across the river from Francis.

Come in on ‘em.

There’s a pretty big camp over there, see?

And they got em this way and thataway.

It wasn’t just one place.

They got ‘em in several places Out!

It was all planned out, you know, and they all, advanced at the same time.

It was a lot of people recruited from over around Konawa they recruited ‘em.

I'm sure they deputized them.

You know.

But yeah, it was around it, come on when the fight came, they scattered.

Some people said they scattered because they saw the people coming at them were their neighbors and friends and said, that's not who our fight was.

Our fight is against Uncle Sam and the draft and sending our boys to war.

There was no glorious battle.

There was no clash of arms.

There was no hand-to-hand combat.

The farmers skedaddled up and down and to Canadian River.

And so for the next several days and even weeks, the goal was to go catch these people.

They were hiding in the gullies.

They were hiding in homes.

They're hiding with sympathizers.

A Lot some of them turn themselves in.

But it was, a huge manhunt to get these people.

They done had Uncle Dunny in custody.

He wasn't in the big bust, Pinkertons got him down to railroad bridge.

They didn't turn him loose.

He was already in custody before all this other took place.

Uncle Albert, I ain't got no idea.

I don't I'm not sure where they got him.

understand there was betrayal from within, inside the group.

And that's why the posse was organized so quickly.

And just like that, before it even started, the rebellion had been put down.

Three men were dead and 458 resisters arrested.

146 were convicted on state and federal charges.

28 did time under maximum security at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, including Ted Eberle’s uncles.

they went to the penitentiary.

Albert served five years, 60 months, Dunny served 38 months at Leavenworth.

They rounded these guys.

Up.

And, the federal.

Courthouse was in Ardmore.

So you'll see lots of coverage of these big trials in Ardmore, where people would take their wagons and camp out there because they were going to be on trial.

So they did lots of trials at one time that figure also includes, a number of people that would have been arrested just because they were known party leaders, so, so known leaders of the Socialist Party or known, labor organizers.

And so, again, you know, you know, the powers that be were using that crisis moment of the war and of this particular rebellion to to kind of enforce conformity and implement this crackdown against radicalism in Oklahoma.

So they were very patriotic, there were war boards to make sure people were patriotic.

And, and this created a large backlash and basically killed Oklahoma's Socialist Party, Most of the newspapers were especially the, the larger one were, were run by, very conservative men.

And they cast this group as red socialists and, and really helped paint the picture that, that took them down, And here's like a Seminole newspaper, the uprising and rioting by outlaws of the South part of the county is the end of socialism in Seminole County.

True, all of the members were not socialists, but there is no one to deny that the leaders who came into this county and.

Perfect.

the organizations were the hottest of the tribe of socialism.

But it's dead in Seminole County.

They're.

Yeah.

They were they were announcing the death knell of socialism right on the wake of it.

Scouring woods for suspects.

They they the headline writers had a lot of fun with this conditions bordering on anarchy.

Whole region aflame.

There was an atmosphere of anxiety after the revolutions in Russia and Mexico.

In 1919, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a law forbidding the waving of a red flag.

Our first flag of was, a victim of, you could almost say the Green Corn Rebellion because it was red with the start.

And a lot of people at the time thought it was socialist.

It's a socialist flag.

And that's one reason why they did the DAR did a big campaign to to come up with a design for a new flag.

And that's how we got the state flag we have now, too many people thought that was kind of a socialist symbol, even though it wasn't.

know, the rebellion happens in August of 1917, the the war effort ends in 1918.

The Socialist Party itself is nonexistent in Oklahoma.

By essentially 1922. wartime emergency goes away.

And so there's no longer the threat of conscription, but the, the debt and poverty that tenant farmers were living in was still present and would only come to the national consciousness a decade later with the Great Depression and with the the rise of Okie migrants, many of whom were tenant farmers, they then having to leave the state.

It didn't take long for the uprising from start to finish, but it had a long term effect.

While history is unclear as to who fired first, it's no mystery who paid the price.

The Socialist Party was finished in the state, and it cast a shadow of suspicion over unions that lasted for decades.

think that the lack of organization was one reason the Green Corn Rebellion had been forgotten.

There were no real heroes that came out of this event.

Most of history is heroes.

never seen nothing in Oklahoma history books about it now or.

And I probably went through at least six different ones of Oklahoma history.

You know, when I was in school, I never seen it no more.

They left it out for some reason.

They didn't know what they're doing.

They just thought they knowed what they was doing.

You know, how stupid would it be to have a little old country hick revolution down here against the United States?

You know.

Wasn’t nothing but just dumber than Hell, that’s what it was.

The socialist, the farmers.

Afterwards, they were ashamed and embarrassed.

Came home from prison.

Broken people hoping that this would.

Just go away.

The Last resister was pardoned by President Warren G. Harding in 1923.

By then, the ill fated insurrection had vanished from the nation's attention in Oklahoma.

It stuck in memory only as a scandal.

The Green Corn Rebellion.

You can watch this and other episodes of Back in Time on the PBS app or at OETA.TV/Back in time.