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Posts by Bugz

  1. Bugz Space Nigga
    why do we have such a multitude of faggotry in this website now.

    fucking weirdo MOON PERSON pieces of shit.

    I got to go for good this time. don't call me to come back. I have enough info
  2. Bugz Space Nigga
    check her stance out. "Put it there, pal"

    haha put it there
  3. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by Joseph R. Biden Jr, 46th President of the United States of America We're going to kill 60 people. To hoodwink the public into not questioning it, let's insert references to our impending crime in a Batman movie.

    flagged, just in case.

    Originally posted by aldra the idea of predictive programming doesn't make sense

    it's used in a type of psychological defense by the powers that be to suggest you created a false memory because of the film you saw. They're not going to be identical but if you bring it up it allows them to create a mockery of it and say you're being childish. "That was just a movie"
  4. Bugz Space Nigga
    Yeah serious on the vinegar .. its mainly used to clean house now because of all the chemicals in Windex and shit. and why use Windex vinegar when you can buy twice as much for half and useful strength white vinegar. Yeah, My Vinegar is racist af
  5. Bugz Space Nigga
    Spinach out of a can is pretty gross. Today I eat raw baby spinach but the Popeye can stuff is great with a dash of vinegar and maybe some butter and lemon.


    without it you want to vomit.
  6. Bugz Space Nigga
    Here is an Example. try and find shit like this to compare. is Hollywood predictive-programming us to adapt to a secret?

    This is the movie 2001ASO scene where Dave is entering Jupiter's atmosphere

    I started at time 2m22s



    the real shit recorded well over a decade later

  7. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by Technologist I don’t care what you think I’m trying to say.
    A thread about jedis? Say it isn’t so. You must be so fucking miserable.

    are you NET A or NET B?

    go betweens are very active today
  8. Bugz Space Nigga
    test
    https://i.imgur.com/qbU0OzQ.mp4

  9. Bugz Space Nigga
    PayPal wouldn't let me make an account because "your Social Security was already used"

    I have never made (other than try to make one and found this out) a Paypal account .. EVER


    guess which CEO I picked up at PayPal next to one fo the Google campus


    Harper Reed. and he was ranting on shit I didn't get then slammed my door when I let him out. Somewhere I have the dashcam of him walking up to my car. its not a lie unless he had a doppleganger that works there

    So who used my SS#?
  10. Bugz Space Nigga
    Hey. "Long live Totse." "Totse forever"





    stylothpllllll

  11. Bugz Space Nigga
    You get the Carrasell reference?

    do you get the SpectraL reference, oh great stylometrics guru?


    Reason is I would like to correct Specs on his prnt-scrn "screen theif" he was arguing with Parker.

    RIPTERM? remember it? it wasn't popular but was a lot more colorful than ANCII or ANSI was (which ever the two worked with Winblows v 1 to 3 DOS)


    RIPTERM had its own copy button. fucking morons. we were trying to find the free painter to make RIP screens for a better BBS but it wasnt working well for WWIV boards. but I believe Jeff had altered Wildcat or some shit. I forgot what he was using with his dialup server software ap.

    " Vector Victor" haha Toiletduk. vector graphics.

    brings back shit. could of should of would of if I knew I was going to be cast out as "Flamewar" and "King of Trolls" by some kid who was still in middle school if that when I started (ZOK)

    with his second hand narratives. Oh Greenspam is the King of Trolls? but not Trippy or that punk I was going to tear a new asshole AKA Digital Avatar?

    Piece of shit accused me. he was baiting me. he just didn't think they would bounce both of us. the first to be bounced and sadly, Greenspam got bounced (or the password got taken from me) on totse.com version 2 years or so after getting bounced off of &totse

    source

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:TOTSE/Archive_1

    Also I suspected JC Stanton Darth Beaver. AKA Parker?

    Shutdown?

    Jesus, Jeff actually pulled the plug?

    Well that was unexpected, where/how did you hear about that? Comradeash 04:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

    I hope this is a joke or a hoax; There's not much information availible on it. If totse is actually shut down, the best part of the internet is gone. --Staples

    Yes. he sent an e-mail out to the moderators to confirm this. I also noticed interstingly, that the domain was created on the 17th of December 1997, exaclty 8 years earlier, to the day. --SirRoss 19:08, 18 December 2005

    I call BS, having earlier talked to a moderator whom recieved no such notice. I have also just talked to a company who leases ad space on totse; they have said that no moderators have been contacted and it is (most likely) down for maintenance. If Jeff had done that I'd drive across the country to bitch-slap him ;). Looking forward to seeing it up again. --Staples

    OK sorry for any confusion on the matter, still interesting about the date it went down though. --SirRoss 22:27, 18 December 2005

    According to Metaphysicist, and i quote, "The BIOS on the sever crashed, taking te server with it....They need to get new hardware" --Weebl 22:17, Dec 18 2005

    Wow That's great I almost cried when I first heard that it was down for good.. Long live Totse!!

    I call bullshit. Why would totse go down without warning?

    Yep, I think Totse's gone, it's sad, but I think it's the truth.

    OMFG, just a thought, do you think it could be down due to revamping Totse (ie, changing the forum software).


    HAH!! TOTSE WILL NEVER DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

    I was expecting a shutdown :(. Damnit.

    "The motherboard on the main server for totse.com fried and died. The server is about 5 years old and we will probably end up replacing the entire server with something that can handle the current traffic load a little better. We have day-old backups of the entire system so we should be able to make a full recovery as soon as new hardware is in place. Please be patient, we are working to get this fixed as quickly as possible."

    That is great I almost cried when i first heard it was down for good.. long live Totse!!

    Am I the only motherfucker who hoped for a perminant shutdown?

    Probably, yes. Most people don't hold grudges against a repository of text files. --Maru (talk) Contribs 17:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

    It's nothing to do with the textfiles, I just think 99% of the users are complete idiots.

    I think many users are 14-year-old 'anarchists' who don't deserve anything but a bullet to the head.. They register at the site for all the wrong reasons and contribute nothing but ignorance and stupidity. There was a topic a while back that read 'I think users should have to take an IQ test to register on totse'. Frankly, I think a policy like this would make totse better for those of us who are actually intelligent human beings with half-decent grammar. --Staples

    That would require Jeff to actually give a shit about what happens on his board. He never has, and he never will. That's why TOTSE went to shit back when it was a dial-up board -- Jeff just didn't give a damn what happened on his board. It was just a place for him to hang out 'whenever', and he expected it to magically run itself. That only worked when there was a community of users who wanted to be there, and who were capable of shouting down idiots when they showed up. Once TOTSE got 4 nodes, then 8, and then NirvanaNet moved beyond the SF Bay Area and became a nation-wide network, the number of clueless fucks multiplied out of control. The signal-to-noise ratio became unacceptable, and the good folk left, which made the SNR worse, accelerating their departure. The classic flood/flamewar by Greenspam in its last few weeks exemplify everything that's wrong with that attitude. Ultimately, TOTSE will probably collapse again after Jeff realizes it will never be 'cool', most people have never heard of it (or him), it's not making any appreciable amount of money, and it's more trouble than it's worth. Until then, enjoy the downward spiral.-- Digital Avatar 05:28, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

    Interesting...

    Come now, its always fun to pwn the n00bs, although the cyclic thread titles in spurious is fucking annoying...remember that thread in S&A where the guy blew nasty diahorrea on his girlfriend? Comradeash 09:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

    If Jeff didn't 'give a shit', why has he continually operated TOTSE for over 15 years? It takes effort and money, son. Thanks for the brief history of TOTSE's operation, but that doesn't really do anything but take up space. You can read all that in the FAQ section of TOTSE. It isn't that hard to add a little coding onto the registration process. I'm not limiting suggestions of how to lower idiocy to an IQ test on the registration form. There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to manage this. A big problem is that, wherever you go on the web, there will be noobs. I dare you to defy me. I also find it odd that you take such a strong offensive to TOTSE. Albeit you seem to be an intelligent person (Judging by your language skills) you seem to display characteristics similar to those of a sociopath or an individual suffering from aspergers syndrome. This or you hold something against an internet forum. Were you banned from TOTSE or made fun of and are distraught? You don't like the ideals TOTSE stands for? If so, get over it. A pessimist like you should be used to being low. Get used to the world stepping over you :). Take it easy, -TNS

    Comeradeash, Yes I do, a classic.. Remember 'Need help with shit covered ass'? --Staples
  12. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by Ghost Special agent scronny is an expert in the field of stylometry

    You sir have been busted

    https://niggasin.space/search?q=telnet&search_type=posts&author=

    So me?

    I just went into this whole reply until I clicked that fucking link. I wasn't sure if you meant me or Kr0z.

    so what are you comparing it to? i see everyone hiveminding off each other.

    One thing I notice is that you seem to be cock blocking me on talking about TOTSE and the March 2001 thread (or started) than proving I am right. are you related to him? are you related to SpectraL? Now Panny lives in Atlanta (i think he does and claims he does) but I know I saw SpectraL make some reference he was Panthrax. Panthrax is Panny?? or are you guys carraselling alt accounts so no one knows who is saying what. Which makes sense since you're stylometrizing people.

    SpectraL die and fall off the planet? or did he happen to leave the very day someone found a site with him on it out of Canada (ahemmm)

    with a story about someone living about 6 blocks from where I am currently residing. I was going to call him on a contradiction regarding this

    and then Luigi stated something about Jeff Hunter being from Canada. or asking me if he was. but then wouldn't expand on that.

    I see style in nature. Extrapolations but its not always right. we're becoming like a fucking single Viral-megaload of one another at this point.

    getting a lot closer though. Interesting windows

    "but the ones with the foil on then wasn't mine"


    LOL

    yeah? I make shit float too
  13. Bugz Space Nigga
    Where is this town? I think there is an Eastmont High in Oakland Cal but clearly not that city. if there isn't an Eastmont High there is an Eastmont Mall. we used to go to it as kids in 1970-74.

    ihts hellaz ghetto now
  14. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by Antifa Member Memes not facts^

    this might be funny as a meme but it's stupid to think J'ews are destroying the same place they live.

    how do you guys manage to function on a daily basis?
  15. Bugz Space Nigga
    Clinton and Gore gave you the opportunity no other nation had. The one thing they did good that I know. funded Computer Sci courses from middle school on up.

    people were being drafted to come work for them straight out of highschool instead of college in the early 2k period. they were getting 200k in stock options and 100k a year because of all of the startup and kickstar money being pulled in. Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, NYC etc big money.

    You guys came from Zoklet. why didn't you have computer programming skills? between Highschool and Zoklet you guys didn't learn to efficiently code or do IT network shit? all of the fucking free pages?

    I didn't have an interest in computer programming (though I am starting to) but more into UFO and weird shit. I figured I could of wrote a book or some shit. I took video A/V (like film classes) in community college. never used my skills and now they're laughably outdated and I should go back. but you guys should of stuck with coding.

    No one in San Francisco (except maybe Salesforce or Google) is going to pull your shit Kr0z. and if they do, they'll say "oh, what happened" and you tell yourside. shit,, I hear there is a lot of male comrodery in San Francisco and a lot of "Grab-assing". they'll act liberal in the public but they're just as bad as bankers and would probably love Kr0zdog telling them funny stories while drinks on the company tab.

    Some of these start-ups have beer in the fridge and free lunches. You live in Austin Kr0z fucking how hard can it be. if Austin is going to snub you're "Slapped my wifey (girlfriend)" then find a city that gives little fucks. You should never abuse a lady again. you should have never did it. But tempers flare from time to time.

    and Red, don't give me your BS story again. you dont' have to be fucking married to a woman to purchase a home with 2 friends as an investment and flip houses on weekends.

    if I didn't articulate this well enough, then Stick it in your butt and read it that way

    I'm out, bitches
  16. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by Bill Krozby Kids really shouldn't be that expensive unless they get sick and you get charged up the ass by the state of texas whether or not they are actually sick.


    Personally id like to have another kid but id make them work.

    My threw a huge fit saying theres no way a woman would ever have a kid with me and then when i got a dna test (i knew it was my kid) by the state proving it was my kid they threw another fit saying i screwed them out of a granddaughter.

    I was like hey get Steven (my lil brother) to have a kid and threw another fit saying he won't do that because he's too selfish lol

    Well you never had to raise your child. The Kids mother did. Why do you try and blend into topics like this. You and Master Blaster were busting my balls on jumpbltc about how easy it was for my generation but not yours.

    I should make a small documentary on that as an exercise since I havn't made any docs in over 15 years. to point out how much we made versus what you make. Yes, I made more in 1988-89 than I was making in 2012 whe I finally got a Job for the first time since JEFF HUNTER BLACK LISTEN MY EMPLOYMENT (a regular job). I was in a union and made 13 an hour while making 9.50 in 2012. but then the Min wage went to 10:50 later that year and when I left I was at 12:50. but on the flip side I got insentive pay which added another 3-5 bucks on average an hour. sometimes much more.

    still. houses were expensive back then. in 2003 when we purchased the last house in far county we paid close to half a million. we had almost 150 in a down and a 350k loan at 11-12 percent. thats fucked. we had shit credit but wanted to move up.

    the interest rate now is 2.3 percent. 3.2 if you have shit credit. thats never happened before.

    it's not like a credit card interest. how a house works. 7/8thd of the monthly payments are towards interest. so say I paid 2000 a month. like 1750.00 is towards the interest and 250 towards the principle of the home. Pay attention fuckers. thats only 250 bucks a month goes towards the equity value in the house. tis happens the first few years.. then shifts slowly .. more and more money towards principle and less towards interest. at 15 years in a 30 year loan you're about 50/50 percent on both.

    a house over 30 years cost nearly 3x what you paid for it in the sale. you pay the fucking bank twice in interest over 30 years than for the house to be paid outright.

    so at interest rates, 3.2 percent means your house payments are like half of what we paid. but the dollar today is worth 1/3rd than 1989 money.

    so you should be paying 3 times on morgage (if it was the same interest) but because the interest is fucking in your favore. your payments are half. HALF. even if homes are also 3 times what they were, this means your morgage is half of what our morgage was in 1989 dollars. your 2021 dollars a month is like Me paying 1000 instead of 2000 if I bought a half million house in 1989


    So don't fucking cry that you can't do it. You're full of shit. you're just not committed to doing it.

    And the funny thing is, if you stuck with your computer education which was shit tier when I was in highschool in 1981-83 (when I took computer sci) you would have a fucking 120k a year job.


    FUCK YOU BITCHES
  17. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by frala No no no this has all been a very complex troll.

    Frala. I didn't go off topic with my last statement. So don't use that to threaten to boot me off this fucking site. Just do it. don't coward behind your fucking alt account. you or Lanny

    I'm sick of your strategic games thinking this makes you look like a more respectable person and I'm just a piece of shit character on this site
  18. Bugz Space Nigga
    Originally posted by ⠀⠀rabbitwe­ed ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ill give you a job.

    it involves using me as your personal pocket pussy and telling me what a dirty whore i am

    you can even spank me

    r u female?
  19. Bugz Space Nigga
    In a strange twist, Sarah’s guardian contracted with Joe Rector to transport lumber and build a structure in the summer of 1915 on farmland bought with Sarah’s funds, meaning, in essence, that Sarah had hired her father. More troubling, the guardians paid Joe only $30 — roughly $775 today — for three months of backbreaking work. Even using Sarah’s money to pay a member of her family

    he automobile was near-totaled, a jumble of hubcaps, spark plugs and gaskets that racked up a repair bill adding up to $2,200 in today’s value. Sarah was unscathed. The accident, though, struck an ominous note for her future. As Sarah ticked closer to 18 years old, when her authority over her money by right should increase, opportunists dug in their heels. The latest pair of court-authorized bureaucrats to oversee her purse strings had gone behind Sarah’s back and signed a contract in her name that extended a lease she had on oil-rich land mined by the Prairie Oil & Gas Company. The conspicuous timing was glaring: the contract was set to expire after she was already a legal adult. The extended lease was not a fiscally sound move. The price guaranteed ($300,000 — roughly $5 million today) did not match the market’s trends. Sarah stood to lose money compared to what she could have earned by renegotiating a new contract at the end of the original lease. The entities poised to profit were her guardians and the mining company.

    Then, Rose, Sarah’s mom, petitioned a court to declare her daughter incompetent to manage her estate, while an uncle would prepare a claim to the court that Sarah was squandering her money. One likely possibility was that the team of guardians had manipulated Mama Rose into filing her petition, convincing her Sarah was in over her head and needed intervention. Though the maneuvers were short-lived, the walls seemed to be closing in, and the Rector family itself was at risk of being torn apart.

    Another shadow fell, according to a lawyer involved with the Rector family, in a renewed fear that one or more kidnapping plots surfaced to try to ransom Sarah for her wealth.

    Then a bombshell landed in the papers: mere hours after turning 18, Sarah announced to the court that she voluntarily forfeited control of all her money to two trustees. “The spirits might get it,” Sarah explained her decision cryptically in a public statement. “Spirits” could have referred to evil spirits, and in The Chicago Defender’s interpretation, particularly “paleface” spirits. “Millionairess for three hours,” a white reporter wrote, as though with a chuckle, inferring that even Sarah herself finally had admitted that a Black girl could not manage such wealth. The dream died. Sarah had surrendered.

    But it had all been a feint.

    After the press gleefully declared Sarah had yielded control of her fortune, those trustees transferred all her money right back to her and stepped away from the case for good. Reams of court documents reveal only fragments of what happened behind the scenes. But a scenario of events presents itself that nicely fits the evidence:

    A rift developed among Sarah’s financial guardians between those who supported her becoming independent and those who refused to let go of their own stakes in her assets. These entrenched guardians had the advantage of the power and respect accorded to them by the legal system that was withheld from Sarah. She had to find a way to coax them — or trick them — into walking away.

    A secret agreement with those trustees who were her allies could be the key. She could voluntarily yield control to those allies and be very public about it — deploying the reporters that had so often plagued her in order to report the arrangement far and wide in the press. This warded off the sharks who had been waiting, through her relatives or otherwise, to try to seize control. By beating them to the punch, Sarah froze their machinations long enough to quietly take control herself before anyone noticed. It took months for that last masterstroke to be reported in the press, and by that time Sarah’s money was really hers — for the very first time.

    “Sarah Rector Her Own Boss,” one newspaper, edited by one of her now-displaced guardians, declared simply. She had outwitted them all. She had not been the gullible and “bewildered” girl. One observer declared high school-aged Sarah a “financial genius.”
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    Having seen the power of liquid gold in his daughter’s case, Joe Rector searched for a chance to contribute to his family’s wealth without the unjust constraints that had been imposed by the legal system onto Sarah. Joe, promised princely profits by a friend, perked up at an investment scheme in oil wells in Mexico. But Joe’s friend betrayed him, leaving him stranded in another country, penniless, embarrassed and defeated. On the train ride home, Joe fell ill and died, supposedly of a broken heart.
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    Sarah was devastated. Although she was only 20 years old, she took her place as the head of the family. She funded siblings’ educations and repaired any rift with her mother. She fended off scammers and con artists trying to stake claims to her money. When she was ready to marry, she chose a husband; he wasn’t chosen by a matchmaking club or by the press. The fairytale of wealth and privilege may have been just that — a fairytale — but Sarah was now an astute and deft investor and real estate developer with properties across several cities and towns in two states.

    There was reason to take particular pride in one of those impressive properties, the Fike Building on South Second Street in downtown Muskogee, Oklahoma. It was a truly grand specimen of architecture, with 13-inch-thick walls and Carthage stone trimmings, towering two stories high and spanning practically an entire city block. It was so big that six successful storefronts lined the first floor and a boarding house with accommodations to room at least 40 guests occupied the upstairs level. The previous owner, Bob Fike, reportedly refused to rent out any space to Black businesses. Now Sarah owned the entire structure.

    By one account, around the same time Joe Rector passed away, one of Sarah’s brothers was taken into jail in Kansas City on a whim by white police officers. Sarah, wearing an imported gown, showed up to free him. Sarah said three words that conveyed power and confidence and put them on their heels, words hard to envision when thinking back to the little girl who had hid under a bed and refused to have her photo taken. Words that meant, in no uncertain terms: do not underestimate me.

    “I’m Sarah Rector.”


    Credit given to writer Laura N Henley

    source
    https://medium.com/truly-adventurous/the-richest-black-girl-in-america-ca8aebe054dc
  20. Bugz Space Nigga
    It takes money to make money. Not just for investing in business stocks. but to educate yourself to become a better person. Best schools cost the most money.

    this is a great story about a young girl of African American Decent. really good read


    Edited to fix name
    Sarah Rector, 11, stood up and wiped her hands on her sweat-soaked shift, a simple loose dress. She had to squint to block out the radiating sun. It was another hot August in rural Oklahoma — hot enough for her barefoot soles to grow numb from the scorching dirt. She wasn’t much taller than the cotton plants surrounding her.

    Sarah, her siblings, dad Joe, and mom Rose would repeat this cycle day in and day out in the summer of 1913 until a sea of bulbous whiteness would stretch out before them. This was the Rector family’s life, and there was little exceptional about it for this time and place. They were Black farmers in the heart of Jim Crow America. They were relegated to the poorest parts of town, to the most menial lifestyle, and to degrading reminders of the long shadow of slavery. There were two mortgages on their property, putting it at risk of foreclosure. For a young girl like Sarah, her realistic prospects in life might be limited to backbreaking domestic work or agricultural labor. If she were lucky, she could become a teacher in a segregated and underfunded local school. Beyond these, most other professions were simply off-limits to poor and working-class Black women.

    Like many other Black families from Oklahoma, the Rectors’ ancestors had been enslaved by the Creek tribe. That meant Sarah and her eldest siblings were eligible to be added to the Creek Nation’s Freedmen Roll, which under federal law entitled them to receive free land allotments.
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    For the most part, the program was a misplaced band-aid on centuries of mistreatment. Sarah’s allotment was almost 100 miles northwest of their town, too far away from the family’s farm to be practical. And that “free” land was hardly free. The properties given to Black residents tended to have uncultivable soil and a hefty annual tax bill. Sarah’s plot was called “a rocky piece of wasteland” by one observer. Joe Rector, a hard worker who protected the best interests of his family, wanted nothing to do with his children’s allotments. He petitioned the Muskogee County Court to authorize a sale of a few hundred dollars, but no buyer could be found. However hard Joe tried, it seemed that he was stuck with them.

    Joe decided to lease Sarah’s land to an oil company. The lease offset some of the tax payments, and came with a royalty if a splash or two of oil happened to be found. The allotment might change from a dreadful burden to a tolerable inconvenience.

    On this particular day, August 29, 1913, Sarah continued the demanding manual labor that helped support her family. She was too far away from her plot to see one of the countless sets of drilling equipment on the horizon twisting into the ground. She could not witness the oil start to bubble up. And then more. And more. If Sarah had found Aladdin’s lamp, as one newspaper later noted, she could hardly have commanded the genie to conjure a wilder scenario than this.

    It was a gusher.

    Without knowing it yet, Sarah Rector in that instant had gone from poor farmers’ daughter to a budding tycoon. Some 2,500 barrels of oil per day spewed out of Sarah’s property, making it what was then the biggest producing well in one of the biggest oil fields in the country. From that first gusher alone Sarah stood to make more than $114,000 per year — nearly $3 million in today’s dollars.

    Everyone wanted to know more about Sarah Rector, about her unbelievable luck and especially about her money — and many would stop at nothing to get it for themselves.
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    Sarah held in her hands her first direct payment from her royalties: $5.25, roughly $138 today. Though it was a tiny sliver of the overall money flooding into the bank, it was still a jackpot to the young girl, and a token of a different life. The world she was used to was small though beloved. Her all-Black town of Taft had a population of fewer than 400 who supported vibrant stores up and down Main Street — family-owned restaurants, a bakery, a barbershop, a shoe repair store, a few grocery stores, all well-advertised in the modest town newspaper. As one local put it, for Black Americans subjected to the brutality of Jim Crow, Taft was “second to none most anywhere” because it was a place for Black folks to feel like they belonged. For Sarah, visiting Black-owned businesses and running errands with her family would have been a stark contrast to the big city of Muskogee just 10 miles east.
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    Now Sarah bought a brand new outfit. She had trouble getting used to her new everyday shoes. But she could not deny they had their practical use. After all, Sarah had two miles to walk to the local school, which she did every day from their family’s sawn-lumber cabin. That cabin had two rooms with one bed. Sarah slept on the floor on a natural-fiber mat. None of this was unusual, and by no means constituted a source of shame in Taft.

    Then up to the cabin rolled a brand new buggy, an open conveyance with big, sturdy wheels. The buggy had a lap blanket to keep the rider warm.

    It was like a personal chariot for the 11-year-old girl, bringing added attention her way. Sarah harnessed a horse to the buggy and trotted into the center of Taft to school, where the recently installed street lights illuminated her newfound fortune for friends, classmates, and teachers to see.

    Newly arrived funds also allowed upgrades to the farm. Chicken houses and a new barn gave animals more space, a smoke house expanded the kitchen’s capacity, and a well for water eliminated the arduous task of hauling pails. An oil stove improved summertime cooking.

    The kids could watch an even more remarkable project taking shape not too far away on the family’s farm. A brand new two-story frame house was now under construction, coming together right before their eyes. When it was done, they filled it with store-bought furniture, another luxury-turned-reality to celebrate.

    Mama Rose, as Sarah’s mother was known by the family, would pick out a dazzling new wardrobe for herself. Perhaps most exciting for Sarah were two luxuries inside the house that would have been unimaginable previously: a phonograph and a piano. Sarah, who was said to have demonstrated “musical talents,” was sitting with her fingers on the keys of a piano that was worth as much as many Black families made in an entire year.
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    Drills buzzed to life across Sarah’s property. The gusher had been no fluke. A staggering 3,800 barrels of liquid gold now filled up every day. Observers predicted that Sarah would break records as one of the richest Black females in United States history, and that she would be paying the single biggest tax bill in the entire state of Oklahoma. Awestruck estimates indicated her annual income would end up double that of the President of the United States. She was compared to “the small heroine of a fairy tale.” A decade before Little Orphan Annie captivated the country in a comic strip about a poor white girl who became rich overnight, “Little Sarah Rector,” as she was referred to by some reporters, transformed into a nationwide sensation. (No surprise, amid much mythologizing, that at one point Sarah actually was described by a newspaper as an orphan, which was not the case.)

    Mail poured in from strangers vying for Sarah’s attention. The letters ranged from conniving to unapologetically demanding. From Boston to Seattle, correspondents begged for a chunk — often a large chunk — of Sarah’s money. A woman from New York bluntly requested a million dollars, promising it was to help improve “the poorer classes.”

    Almost immediately, a flurry of men — including some white men who would not have given a second thought to supporting racist Jim Crow laws — sent letters proposing marriage. This despite the fact that Sarah was just turning 12. Some suitors included photographs. Others placed their letters in envelopes marked with stamps from international destinations. The secretary of a men’s matrimony club, geared to make matches in the Black community, called dibs on Sarah for himself.

    Sarah reportedly just wanted to go about what had been her normal, “happy-go-lucky” life. She showed no interest in entertaining suitors. But as public commentary piled up, two recurring notions emerged. One was that Sarah now represented her whole race, however unfair an idea that was. She had received this incredible good fortune — the logic ran — and with it came responsibility. A conflicting notion questioned whether she belonged in the elite stratum in which her wealth placed her. Sarah may have been young and shy and inexperienced in the wider world, but a new mission became clear: to prove herself ready, and to silence the doubters.

    Sarah may as well have been disembarking in another country when she stepped foot onto the campus of the prestigious Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a premier school for Black students from children to young adults. Booker T. Washington was said to have personally arranged for Sarah’s enrollment shortly before his death. Margaret Murray Washington, his widow, was the principal overseeing young women, and she took an interest in the already famous new pupil. Sarah had Mama Rose close at hand while she stayed in Alabama to help Sarah get settled. Joe would also come visit. Rose and Joe knew that their parental responsibilities only grew with the size of Sarah’s bank accounts.

    Sarah certainly looked the part of Tuskegee student, with her funds providing classy store-bought clothes and a top-of-the-line Singer sewing machine that would cost more than $1,000 today. She was accompanied by her 13-year-old sister Rebecca, whose tuition was paid out of Sarah’s rapidly growing wealth. Schooling and attendant expenses for the year for one student would run upward of $10,000 in today’s currency. In addition to an amazing opportunity for Rebecca’s educational horizons, she could provide a moral support system for her sister.

    Culture shock was not far behind. Tuskegee’s total student body was roughly five times larger than the entire population of Taft. The campus, a magnificent “oasis in the desert” as one visitor commented, was situated in the broad rolling ridges of eastern Alabama. Driving up to the institute’s main entrance, manicured shade trees and white rocks outlined pristine roads, broad sidewalks, and professionally designed landscapes. More than 40 buildings — more than half of which had been painstakingly built by Tuskegee students from bricks produced at the institute’s brickyard — jutted up in an orderly fashion, adorned with iron fencing, Grecian columns, stately turrets and artful steeples.

    The massive Children’s House, where Sarah’s classes were held, would have been the biggest schoolhouse she had ever seen. In contrast with the modest schoolroom she had known back home, this structure had its own kitchen and cloakroom. Tuskegee drew students from nearly every state and over a dozen countries, yet another dramatic change from the tight-knit community of Taft.

    Attending class with a combination of local students and those from far away, Sarah learned to garden and farm on the two acres of fertile land surrounding the Children’s House. That the schoolhouse was located near the Washingtons’ campus residence, The Oaks, was no accident — they could keep an eye out for the youngest and most impressionable members of Tuskegee’s community. Sarah began to get acclimated, aided by the careful attention of the formidable Margaret Murray Washington and a supportive campus of students. Like her fellow pupils, Sarah attended her classes and followed the rules. For a while, life began to seem almost normal.
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    Sarah had to look over her shoulder more than once since fame and fortune had been foisted upon her. Now, rumors circulated that she was in grave danger at school. “Schemers,” it was said, had arrived in Alabama in a plot to kidnap Sarah. A group of Tuskegee students formed a regiment of guards to keep her safe. Tecumseh Bush, an athletic fellow student who had come from Waco, Texas, took responsibility to lead the group of young bodyguards.

    However exhilarating it had been to become rich overnight, it was also terrifying, especially for a Black child who was often left vulnerable by laws and policies. Sarah did not have to look far to find nightmare-inducing examples of what could be in store.

    There had been another windfall in Taft that had belonged to Stella and Herbert Sells. The two Black children’s allotments — in the same region as Sarah’s — also had produced geysers. In the spring of 1911, as the family slept, a package bomb exploded under their house and, as it was engulfed in flames, horrified neighbors watched helplessly as the children were incinerated. The bombing had been a conspiracy led by a real estate developer who had plotted to fabricate a deed to the children’s allotment. The children had been seen as easy targets. Stella Sells had been around Sarah’s age and it’s likely that the two girls knew each other.

    Now it could be Sarah Rector’s turn. To the shock of everyone around the world following all the phases of her story, the leading Black newspaper, The Chicago Defender, ran a disturbing headline. For those rooting for Sarah, the inevitable seemed to have happened:

    Millionaire Colored Girl Kidnapped?… Richest Child of the Race Mysteriously Disappears.
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    Some candy and a handful of pennies purportedly had been used to lure Sarah away from Tuskegee. The news would make hearts drop. One concerned member of the public offered to go undercover looking for her.

    But no evidence exists that suggests she was actually kidnapped, or even that she went missing, and the timing of The Defender’s news does not line up with records of Sarah’s whereabouts. The news story, in addition to selling papers, reflected the larger anxiety about where a young millionaire Black girl fit into society. It is also possible there were times during which Sarah ran away or hid from the incessant attention. Whatever the narrative’s origins, the idea of luring her with pennies had been a particularly ironic and unlikely touch, considering her income.

    There had been a very real dark side, however, from the very beginning. At one point when the news first exploded and reporters stampeded to the Rector home, Sarah supposedly hid under the bed instead of sitting for an interview. She had refused a request from one newspaper to be in a photograph. In addition to getting used to the attention, she had to steel herself to face racist expectations and assumptions about her. Nicknames very intentionally tied her wealth to her race, demeaning her as a kind of sideshow act. Many small town papers dubbed her the “darky heiress” and the Arkansas City Daily News labeled her “the negro oil queen.” According to those who didn’t even know Sarah — who had never met her — she was illiterate, ignorant, unworthy of wealth. Rumors were spread that Sarah was a foreigner who had lived in a hut at the time the oil was struck. The idea was mocked that a “kinky haired” girl with “curly pigtails and pigeon toes” would have the audacity to think an education at top schools could make her a lady.

    Leaving Taft was in itself risky. Segregation was more than a way of life — it was the law, making it deadly for Black people to move about freely. Taft was a refuge for residents who could not feel welcome or safe elsewhere.

    Public envy burned toward Sarah, in large part because of her race. “Lease that land and see what’s under it,” a newspaper encouraged its white readers while reporting about Sarah. As white citizens, they were assured they deserved fortunes more than Sarah did. “Are you ‘as good’ as a negro? Think it over.”

    The white establishment had to square two irreconcilable facts. Here was a girl who now had the spending power and associated privileges of some of the country’s wealthiest tycoons; and yet that girl was Black. The only thing they could think to do was have the court declare her white, which ironed out the logical conundrum. At least, that turn of events was part of the popular telling. The existence of the tale suggests that, in fact, is the way many people at the time thought, but the court declaration of Sarah as white actually appears to be apocryphal. In reality, the system never forgot Sarah was Black, not for a moment.
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    Right after the exultation surrounding the first oil gusher, a white financial guardian was appointed to oversee Sarah’s money. The insidious rules instituting this requirement for minors followed a blatantly racist logic that Black parents were inherently incapable of managing their family’s affairs. The greatest dangers to Sarah’s wealth did not come from pushy correspondents or shadowy kidnappers that may have been lurking, but rather from the smiling white men in suits — bankers, lawyers, bureaucrats in their 40s and 50s — shaking her family members’ hands, promising they’d take care of everything.
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    There opened, in effect, the Bank of Sarah Rector.

    The white guardian and lawyer for the case declared that Sarah’s accounts were “far in excess of the needs.” They decided to loan her money out to people and businesses, far and wide, at an 8% interest rate — not the money-hungry rate of unscrupulous lenders (which could reach nearly 40%), but enough to make a handsome profit nonetheless. Before the year was up, funds from Sarah’s accounts had been loaned in amounts adding up to at least $255,000 in today’s terms to five local citizens of the Muskogee area. By the end of the following spring, Sarah’s money had been loaned to 18 more people.

    The guardian received at least 2% of total funds and the lawyer would skim off a percentage, too. They would also receive kickbacks for directing money into certain investments. Sarah, on the other hand, could not access her own money without permission. If she requested funds, it was at the guardian’s discretion whether to approve, and at that point the guardian would present expenses to a court for yet another level of approval. An investigator for the NAACP at the time opened a file on whether “this little colored girl is being neglected… while white men have control of her estate and control it not in her best interests.” The investigator warned the Secretary of theInterior that the girl’s guardian “would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded to a good yard dog.”

    The constraints of Jim Crow laws meant that Sarah’s Cinderella story leaned heavily toward Cinderella’s captivity, in Sarah’s case with a financial overseer taking the role of the controlling stepmother.
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