Physical Description
xiv, 656 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm
Summary
"When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to Greenwood, Tulsa, his family joined a growing community on the cusp of becoming the center of Black life in the West. But, just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood. They laid waste to 35 blocks and murdering as many as 300 people. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst acts of racist violence in United States history. The Goodwins and many of their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into "a Mecca," in Ed's words, where nightlife thrived, small businesses flourished, and an underworld economy lived comfortably alongside public storefronts. Ed grew into a prominent businessman and bought a community newspaper called the Oklahoma Eagle to chronicle its resurgence and battles against white bigotry. He and his genteel wife, Jeanne, raised an ambitious family, who became literal poster-children for black progress, and their son Jim, an attorney, embodied their hopes for the Civil Rights Movement. But, by the 1970s urban renewal policies had nearly emptied the neighborhood, even as Jim and his neighbors tried to hold onto pieces of Greenwood. Today, the newspaper remains, and Ed's granddaughter Regina represents the neighborhood in the Oklahoma state legislature, working alongside a new generation of local activists"-- Provided by publisher.
Variant and related titles
Epic story of Tulsa's Greenwood district, America's Black Wall Street
Other formats
Online version: Luckerson, Victor Built from the fire. First edition New York : Random House, [2023]
Contents
Prologue
Do not hesitate, but come
And sometimes better, besides
Black capital
False promises
The war at home and abroad
"Get a gun and get busy"
The massacre
A conspiracy in plain sight
Far from home
The myth of an impervious people
Sugar Man
Family business
A world apart
Separate but equal
Crossing the line
You'll be a man, my son
Somewhere between hope and expectation
A slower burn
Handoffs
In flesh and stone
Reconciliation day
"Trust the system"
This is our time
Dissolution
The rituals of remembrance
Beyond ceremony
Epilogue.