Startled, Page screamed, and a white clerk in a first-floor store called police to report seeing Rowland flee from the elevator. Although the exact facts are in dispute, according to the most accepted accounts, he tripped and, trying to save himself from falling, grabbed the first thing he could, which happened to be the arm of the elevator operator, Sarah Page. On May 30, 1921, Rowland attempted to enter the Drexel Building elevator. One of the news articles that contributed to tensions in Tulsa There was no separate facility for blacks at the shine parlor where Rowland worked and the owner had arranged for black employees to use a segregated ' Colored' restroom on the top floor of the nearby Drexel Building at 319 S. As Tulsa was a segregated city where Jim Crow practices were in effect, black people were not allowed to use toilet facilities used by white people. He dropped out of high school to take a job shining shoes in a white-owned and white-patronized shine parlor on Main Street in downtown Tulsa. Rowland attended the city's segregated schools, including Booker T. Eventually, Jones took Roland as his last name, which was later reported as 'Rowland.' He selected his favorite first name, Dick, as his own. In approximately 1909 Ford and Jones moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to join Ford's family, the Rolands. Jones was informally adopted by Damie Ford, an African-American woman. It is not known where he was born, but by 1908 he and two sisters were orphans living in Vinita, Oklahoma.

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