Not Banned History Yet: The Tulsa Race Massacre

The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice
Scott Ellsworth, 2021
272 Pages
City Library, 11 copies available; County Library, 4 copies available, ebook available

The mayor of Tulsa has proposed establishing a $100 million fund for reparations to descendants of the city's 1921 city's race massacre. It was reportedly the worst single incident of racial violence in American history, with dozens and maybe hundreds of deaths, and the complete destruction a prosperous district sometimes called "the black Wall Street," where segregated residents and a segregated economy thrived. However, just as Trump and Republicans are trying to do with all black history, Tulsa erased this shameful incident from the collective memory for decades. The Ground Breaking apparently details the historical horror itself as well as the road to recognition and justice for those who demanded that the city reckon with the truth of the past and its still-reverberating damage. The book got good reviews when it came out a few years ago.
Publisher's Summary:
"The definitive, newsbreaking account of the ongoing investigation into the Tulsa race massacre In the late spring of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, erupted into the worst single incident of racial violence in American history. Over the course of sixteen hours, mobs of white men and women looted and burned to the ground a prosperous African American community, known today as Black Wall Street. More than one thousand homes and businesses were destroyed, and scores, possibly hundreds, of people lost their lives. Then, for nearly a half century, the story of the massacre was actively suppressed. Official records disappeared, history textbooks ignored the tragedy, and citizens were warned to keep silent. Now nearly one hundred years after that horrible day, historian Scott Ellsworth returns to his hometown to tell the untold story of how America's foremost hidden racial tragedy was finally brought to light, and the unlikely cast of characters that made it happen. Part true-crime saga, part archaeological puzzle, and part investigative journalism, The Ground Breaking weaves in and out of recent history, the distant past, and the modern day to tell a compelling story of a city-and a nation-struggling to come to terms with the dark corners of its past