Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Built From the Fire with Victor Luckerson
Episode Date: July 12, 2023Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with author Victor Lukerson about the Tulsa Race Massacre. Victor’s new book, Built From the Fire, brings to light the atmosphere and events... in Oklahoma that make up the 1921 riot–or as Victor calls it–the pogrom, or organized extermination of an ethnic group. Learn about the violence and destruction white Tulsa wrecked on the prosperous black community of Greenwood, the community's perseverance, and the effects that are still felt today, a century later. Special thanks to our guest, Victor Luckerson for joining us today. You can order Built From the Fire here. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Victor Luckerson Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello, friends. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am speaking with a
brand new author who has written a very important book. His name is Victor Lucerson, and he
has a new book out called Built from the Fire, which is about the Tulsa Race Massacre, an incredibly important event that a conspiracy
covered up for over 80 years. And I think you need to hear from Victor and you need to learn
more about this event. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.
I'm very excited to be chatting with Victor Lucerson today. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, Sharon. I'm so glad to be here.
Your book is called Built from the Fire, and it is about a very, very significant event that historians have even argued about what is even the right term to call
it? And you even talk about this in your book. Is it a riot? Is it a massacre? What is the correct
term? What term do you use for what happened in Tulsa in the early 1920s? You know, it's a really
interesting question, Sharon, because this story really started for me with talking to folks in
Greenwood who were descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre about what they experienced. And I
remember one day I met with a man named Jim Goodwin. He is a massacre descendant now in his
80s and the publisher of the Black newspaper in Greenwood, they'll call him Eagle. And so we were
discussing the event that occurred in 1921, this destruction of the Greenwood community.
And he was telling me the history of the terminology and how when he was growing up, it had been called the Tulsa Race Riot.
That was kind of what it was known as on both sides of town, both black and white.
More recently, it had been called the Tulsa Race Massacre, which is, I think, the terminology that's pretty common these days.
But Jim was telling me that he thought that pogrom actually might be the best term.
A pogrom is a planned extermination of a specific ethnic group. And when you look at what happened
in Greenwood with this group of a white mob and even white city leaders, police officers and
others being involved in the wholesale destruction of this community with racism really fueling
that destruction, I think pogrom is an extremely fair term to use
for what happened in Greenwood in 1921. This is a topic I'm sure you are well aware.
There was a big conspiracy to cover up, a big conspiracy to make sure that the news of this
event didn't get out. And when there was recently in 2021, 100th anniversary, there's been an effort to try to
have a commission to try to talk about some of the issues that have happened. But nevertheless,
this is a topic that the overwhelming majority of Americans never learned about in school.
The overwhelming majority of Americans are like, I didn't know. I have no idea what you're talking about. Or maybe they've heard a passing mention, but they don't really have a grasp of the gravity, the size,
the magnitude of this event. So I'm wondering if you can illuminate for people who are just now
encountering the Tulsa race massacre for the very first time. Give us a high level overview
of what actually took place. And I know it's a long, complicated story, but just set the stage
for exactly what was going on in this part of the world in 1921.
So Oklahoma is a unique case in that it's not quite the South, it's not quite the West,
but it's really a place
that decided to import Jim Crow from the deep South. They sort of imported the worst tendencies
of our country into this place. And that was sort of brewing in Tulsa in 1921, a place where
segregation was deeply entrenched. Black people were forced to give up their seats on trains
and a place where interaction between Black men and white
women were extremely frowned upon. I remember reading articles in the Tulsa Press about saying
that if Black men want to avoid a necktie party, they should stay away from white women.
And so there was sort of this inciting incident in Tulsa in May 1921 when a white woman named
Sarah Page was working on an elevator when a black man named Dick Rowland stepped onto it.
He's trying to get to the top floor. Sarah Page is working as the attendant for the elevator.
As the doors close, the elevator lurches. Dick Rowland steps on Sarah Page's foot.
She screams. Ultimately, Dick Rowland gets accused of raping Sarah Page.
And a newspaper account even exaggerates things further, claiming that he tore at her clothes, giving him these sort of bestial qualities.
And this article kind of whips up a frenzy in white Tulsa on the day of May 31st, 1921.
A group of white Tulsans decided to go to the courthouse where Dick Rowland's been held on this attempted rape charge.
And they're, you know, they're thinking about lynching him.
They're thinking about taking this man from the courthouse and hanging him somewhere.
Little did they know that black Tulsa is also aware of what's going on. Black Tulsa
decides to arm itself, go down to the courthouse, defend Dick Rowland. They're saying, you know,
we're not going to put up with mob law, lynch law. We're not going to have this anymore in our
community. These two groups, this white group and this black group of armed men, sort of have this
altercation this night of May 31st. They're
shooting throughout the streets of downtown Tulsa. We have bodies in the streets. I read a lot of
really difficult passages about exactly what happened in terms of black men being dragged
behind cars and all this kind of stuff. And the very next morning, as a kind of retaliation for
this black show of force, white Tulsa gathers in mass thousands of people, both men and women, I should say.
They have kerosene, they have matches, they have torches, and they decided to systematically burn
down the entirety of Greenwood as a kind of punishment for Black people daring to arm
themselves and daring to defend one of their own. And so this Tulsa destruction really occurs in
the morning of June 1st, and the numbers we have are truly horrifying.
There were 1,256 buildings destroyed.
Even more businesses were burned to the ground beyond the homes.
We don't know the exact number of people that were killed.
Estimates range as high as 300 black people killed in this attack.
And I should say that, you know, a number that I found when I really started digging deeper, there were eight stillborn babies during the race massacre. And so when you find out facts like that, that really show how not only was Greenwood's past
taken from it, but his future was taken from it as well. They really sort of illustrate the gravity
and the horror of this event that we now know as the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Greenwood was a unique community in many ways. Certainly it was not the only prosperous Black community in the country, but it was well known. My understanding is they didn't really start using
the phrase Black Wall Street until after the race massacre, but correct me if I'm wrong on that.
I was done your homework, Sharon. I love it. I love it.
But nevertheless, you may have heard the term Black Wall Street, and that is used to illustrate
how remarkably successful and prosperous this community was. When you look at pictures of the
types of middle-class homes that people were living in. They're beautiful homes. I mean, they're beautiful homes by today's standards. So can you talk a little bit more about the unique
nature of Greenwood? Because I do think that that directly relates to some of the like pent up
animosity between the black and white community. Oh yes, for sure. That's certainly a great insight.
And again, Oklahoma was almost this unusual incubator test chamber in the United States in the early 20th century.
And as white people were importing Jim Crow over there, black people were importing almost the best of the best in their community.
If you're living in the deep south in the early 20th century as a black family, you would learn about Oklahoma as this Eden of the West, almost this black utopia, where the old rules of the Jim
Crow South wouldn't have to be followed anymore. This family I chose to follow in my book, the
Goodwins, they were in rural Mississippi in the early 1910s, and they traveled to Oklahoma like
so many others seeking a better life. And when they arrive in Greenwood, what they really find
is a place where entrepreneurship is valued, education is valued, and solidarity is valued in
the community. One of my favorite sort of entrepreneurial stories about early Greenwood
is a woman named Lula Williams. She owned the Dreamland Theater. Some people might have watched
the Watchmen TV show on HBO or Lovecraft Country. They featured this theater very prominently,
the Dreamland, and Lula was a person who really owned it in real life. She really advocated for
herself as a female entrepreneur in an era when that wasn't that common. When the Dreamland opens
in 1914, we're hearing all about Lula's husband, John, how John is the Negro Rockefeller, how John
does such a great job with this theater. But Lula took it upon herself to say that, no, this is
actually my theater, my property. She went so far as to file an affidavit in the courthouse claiming that she owned the projector, the seats, the popcorn machine. That
was all Lula's. John's property was separate. And so I just really loved learning that story
about somebody really advocating for themselves in that community. And I should also point out
that places like the Dreamland were not only about business. At a theater like the Dreamland,
on some days they would have vaudeville shows, the best Hollywood pictures, but also it would
be a place where they would stage protests against the encroaching Jim Crow in Oklahoma.
There was a slogan that would be said sometimes at the Dreamland, which was,
do not cower in front of white people, but stand for your rights and fight.
And so I really love that idea that when Black people own this property and this space,
they're able to use it for whatever ends they think are valuable at the moment.
And so there are so many other places like that in the Greenwood community.
The Stratford Hotel, which is one of the biggest Black-owned hotels in that era.
The Tulsa Star, which was a daily Black newspaper in the 1910s when that was extremely uncommon.
You know, there were just so many different entrepreneurs making so many
innovations and clever strategies to find success in that era. There were a lot of Black communities
in the early 20th century, which were thriving and finding prosperity. But I think Greenwood
had a unique formula because so many folks were coming in there from the Jim Crow South,
often the most savvy and entrepreneurial folks who had been in the Jim Crow South beforehand. This was also a time in the United States during the second coming of the KKK.
When you saw the KKK begin to proliferate, eventually they have numbers in the millions.
So first of all, did the Klan have anything to do with the Tulsa Race Massacre?
So that was really one of my key elements of research that I was trying to dig into.
And I think in the pop culture depictions, you might get the sense that they were the masterminds behind it.
I remember watching on Watchmen, for example, they sort of illustrate the race massacre.
And they have all these guys in white robes running around with guns.
It wasn't like that. I know that from the photos.
But I think one thing people need to understand about the Klan is that it's not just about white men in robes and pointy hoods.
It was also a professional network.
It was also a boys club.
And so in some ways, actually, the resurgent Klan of the 20s kind of started that way.
This sort of boys club, professional network.
There were judges in the Klan, police in the Klan,
people in the highest realms of power. And so in Tulsa in 1921, it was sort of gestating is where
I'd put it. The Klan would become a super dominant force in Oklahoma politics in the 1920s,
with many state legislators being open members of that organization. But in 20 and 21, it was
kind of just getting started. And so I think that
it's very likely that there were Klan members involved in the massacre. But I also think that
the actual act of the massacre itself helped to galvanize the Klan, gave them something to latch
onto in Tulsa and in Oklahoma. And so in some ways, it's almost the inverse of maybe the intuitive
thought. I think it's sort of more so that once this event happened, it sort of proves that Tulsa is the best breeding ground for this nascent racist group.
Yeah, that's a great point. And it's a great point too, to underscore the idea that the second
coming of the Klan was far more than just men in pointy hats, that many of them were open about
their affiliation. And these were ordinary Americans. Today,
when we think about the Klan, we're like, who even is in that? But we are talking absolutely
mainstream, your next door neighbor, the police officers, the judges, the teachers, the ministers,
the man who works at the auto shop, the man who builds your house. This was a very,
very mainstream belief. And this is the height of fraternal organizations in the United States.
So to your point, again, that it was a club, they marketed it and they had a marketing budget.
They literally hired marketers. They marketed it as a fraternal organization, as a patriotic fraternal organization.
Again, to your point, even though the Klan doesn't appear that they planned the Tulsa
race massacre, the fact that it happened gave credence to their nascent ideas of like,
see, we do need to band together.
ideas of like, see, we do need to band together. We do need to openly form our quote unquote,
patriotic fraternal organization. It's so true that the Klan played a significant role. One of the reasons we know that the Klan, I guess, benefited from the massacre in Tulsa in a lot
of ways, is that within a year in 1922, they opened their first clavern in Tulsa in a lot of ways is that within a year, in 1922, they opened their first
clavern in Tulsa with the K, everything's with the K. Where do they build it? On a hill overlooking
Greenwood. If you lived in Greenwood, you could see this new clavern they built. It was called
Be No Hall, theoretically for the Tulsa Benevolent Association, but black folks would say that it
stood for Be No N***a, be no Catholic, be no Jew.
That's how that space was known in the Tulsa community.
And that was built within a year of the race massacre.
So to your point, Sharon, that event really helped to not only galvanize the animosity of the Klan, but also the infrastructure, right?
They needed a space to have their meetings, to make their organization, to pay their dues and all this kind of stuff.
And this Be No Hall became that space in Tulsa, just a few steps from Greenwood.
Wow. I didn't know that. That really underscores this white mentality of like,
see what happens when you try to stand up for yourself. I want to go back to Dick Rowland
because he has remained a shadowy figure. Historians have looked for him for decades.
There are so many people who are like, dang, I would just love to know where he went.
And so you mentioned at the beginning that really the straw that broke the camel's back,
so to speak, was this event that happened on an elevator. Wasn't he trying to locate the restrooms?
Trying to go to the bathroom. That's right. That's right.
Yeah. Yeah. He went into the building. He was working nearby, went into the building to
use the restrooms on the top floor. And then what actually transpired on the elevator also has been
the subject of great historic debate. Most scholars feel like the most likely thing that
happened is that he stepped on her foot and perhaps she recoiled back with like an ouch,
or maybe she was startled, or maybe she didn't want to be alone on the elevator with him,
or there's a huge variety of possibilities of that exact interaction.
But the fact that the elevator reaches the top and who gets off, but a black man and a white woman
and some of the people working in the building had heard her make some kind of sound. And then
all hell breaks loose. Truly, all hell breaks loose in this community as a result of a very, very brief altercation.
Tell everybody more about what happens with Dick Rowland and also what happened with Sarah,
the woman who was on the elevator with him.
So as you say, they're both kind of enigmas.
You know, in my book, I write that they kind of step into history when they walk on the elevator and step out of it when they leave. But we do know that Dick Rowland was
a shoeshine boy in White Tulsa. Some of his high school classmates have left recollections about
what he was like. He was a ladies' man. He kind of had a penchant for flashy clothes. He was a
teenage guy doing the things teenage guys do. Diamond Dick, people called him.
Exactly.
You know, we know a little bit about Dick's background before the incident.
I should say that there's an interesting dynamic with the way the police were functioning at this time.
If you go back to the era, so Dick Rowland gets arrested after this accusation of rape from the elevator incident.
Who accuses him of rape?
So let's walk through the play-by-play.
Dick and Sarah have this incident on the elevator.
When the elevator doors open, an employee for the department store in the building observes Dick Rowland and Sarah Page.
Dick Rowland runs away immediately.
Someone, we actually don't know who, goes to the police.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that it could have been the department store employee goes to the police to alert them of what has happened.
And Dick Rowland ends up being arrested the next morning by the police.
They come to his house in Greenwood and arrest him.
So it's actually after Rowland's been arrested, it's actually the Tulsa Tribune that sort of creates the narrative about rape.
There's an article that's published in the newspaper after
Rowland's arrest titled, Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator. And that's where we get these
so-called facts about Dick Rowland tearing at her clothes, clawing at Sarah Page, and also sort of
portraying Page as a, I believe, a teenage orphan, trying to paint her in the most innocent possible
light and Rowland in the most bestial possible light. Truly, the newspaper is, I think, one of the major culprits for how this
narrative whips through the community. And after Rowan is arrested, the police actually claim that
they're arresting for his own protection. But the reason we know that can't really be true is because
in scenarios similar to this in other communities, a black man had been arrested and
there was some thought that a mob might form. The black man would be taken out of the community.
That's the most logical way to stem off this racial ferment. But in Tulsa, the Tulsa County
sheriff, he was sort of this man's man guy. And he thought that, you know, I can protect Dick
Rowland. I'm not going to coax out to the mob. I got this kind of. And so this man's sort of
hubris is sort of the reason he decides we're going to just like out to the mob. I got this kind of. And so this man sort of hubris is sort
of the reason he decides we're going to just like put Dick Rowland at the very top of the courthouse
and barricade him in there and protect him while not really worrying about all the knock-on effects
that are going to be unfolding in the neighborhood. And so in my book, I talk a little bit about Dick
Rowland and Sarah Page and the elevator incident, what we know about it.
But I thought it was even more important to walk through what the police were doing, because at the moment they decided to arrest Dick Rowland, the police actually became the main actors in this event.
And all this stuff the police take moment by moment really illustrate that they had no interest in protecting Greenwood.
The police could have taken Dick Rowland out of the community, which would have diffused the situation. Later in the night, as things sort of started to spiral
into a little bit of chaos, the police decide that it's more important to protect white Tulsans and
white property than protect Greenwood. They even go so far as to arm white citizens, not even
getting their names, handing them badges, handing them guns, and instructing
them to quote unquote protect white Tulsa, which ultimately meant destroying Greenwood.
And so for me, as I walked through the massacre, I become much more focused on the police's role,
the state's role, these institutions' role, because I think that's the part of the equation
that persists today. Dick Rowan and Sarah Page are gone,
but the Tulsa Police Department is still here. The city of Tulsa is still here. And so we need
to hold those institutions to account for the role that they played during the massacre as well.
Yeah. And I think it's a little bit shocking for some people to hear
that local stores were just emptied out of weapons and ammunition and that the police just, as you said,
handed out badges, deputized ordinary citizens, no screening process, no like, hey, if things go
south, let's be sure to call up this list of people. Just whoever is there, present, angry,
I'm showing up, give me a gun, tell me where to go, give me a badge. Suddenly
you have police power. And it appeared as though it was like an indiscriminate deputization of
hundreds or thousands of people in an effort to bring Greenwood to its knees. Am I characterizing
that correctly? That's exactly right, Sharon. I'm Jenna Fisher, and I'm Angela Kinsey.
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your podcasts. In my research, I came across a young white man named Laurel Buck, who was out on the streets of Tulsa on the night of the race massacre. So Buck is out there near the courthouse.
He sort of sees the black men coming. He sort of senses something's about to happen around the
courthouse. He makes a beeline for the police station.
He actually hears the gunshots of the altercation at the courthouse as it's unfolding.
He walks into the police station. People are starting to stream towards there. He goes to an
officer asking what he should do. And the officer tells him, get a gun, get busy and try to get an
a**hole. And so that small story just illustrates what was unfolding all throughout Tulsa on the night of May 31st, as this sort of fervent energy was being whipped up, not only by
the quote unquote mob, but also by the highest officials in the city. So I think it's so important
for people to understand that the Klan isn't just guys in pointy hoods. The mob is not just some
sort of abstract vision of like rednecks or like backwater people or
people who are separate from the citizen of Tulsa. It was Tulsa from the highest sense of power
to the average working man. After this massacre takes place, after Greenwood is essentially wiped
off the map. And if you Google pictures of what Greenwood looked like after this massacre ended. It is shocking. It looks like
somebody just leveled it with high capacity missiles. We're not talking about like, oh,
a little fire here and there and like some graffiti. No, no, no, no. It is piles of rubble.
That is what Greenwood looks like. Piles of rubble. What happened in the
immediate aftermath? What was the immediate effect on the residents of Greenwood? What did they do?
You know, Sharon, I opened the chapter in the book right after the race massacre,
really trying to paint that scene of what the street of Greenwood Avenue was like.
Charred rubble lining the streets, smoke still in the air,
Lula Williams Dreamland Theater, the marquee hanging by a single fastener and dangling in
the wind. And one of the challenges that Greenwood faced was that they had no time to process that.
They had no time to sort of go through the emotional work you need to, to sort of understand
what happened to you and improve yourself. They just had to fight for their lives. And that fight really began the day after the race massacre. And so there were sort of
several fronts in which Greenwood sort of tried to fight back. They had to rebuild, obviously.
And so you immediately see mutual aid groups forming, people in the community trying to sort
of figure out how are we going to scrounge up enough money to be able to rebuild. But at the
same time,
you saw that white Tulsa really wanted that land. The area of Greenwood was actually a budding downtown Tulsa. It's almost the same as today when you think about gentrifying neighborhoods.
It was a very valuable parcel of land that white Tulsa wanted to build a train depot or an
industrial site, whatever their own ends might've been. And so in the days after the massacre,
the leading white real estate developers in Tulsa sort of hatched this scheme to say,
we're going to buy out the neighborhood. We're going to move these black folks farther north.
And they're not going to be able to say anything about it. One thing I think is so amazing about
what happened post-massacre is that even though the most powerful folks in Tulsa were hatching
this scheme, black people said, no, you're not going to buy us out.
You're not going to move us. We're going to stay right here. And one of my favorite quotes,
actually, that I discovered in my research was from J.W. Hughes. He was the principal of Dunbar
Elementary School. Dunbar burned to the ground during the race massacre, along with almost every
other structure in Greenwood. He's at this community meeting where they're trying to figure
out what to do. And he states, I'm going to keep what I have until I get what I lost.
And that mentality of holding on to this space, no matter what, is really the core essence of how Green was able to survive amidst not only the destruction of the massacre itself, but the duplicity of White Tulsa afterwards seeking to seize their land.
I want everybody to read your book and they're going to get a lot more details, a lot
more really just it's, there's going to be so much that we don't have time to discuss today,
but I want to hear from you. What are some of the ongoing repercussions of the fact that Tulsa's
black wall street was leveled in 1921? What are the effects today of that? I think there's both physical and psychological
effects. On the physical side, my book goes far beyond the race massacre and really captures what
happened in the century afterwards. I talk a lot about the second destruction of Greenwood.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Greenwood was destroyed for a second time because of urban renewal policies
and the construction of the interstate program. When all that was going on, Greenwood was destroyed for a second time because of urban renewal policies and the
construction of the interstate program. When all that was going on, Greenwood was being blighted
by the city of Tulsa and the powers that be. But one of the reasons that there were so many
dilapidated structures in the community was because they had been rebuilt rapidly after 1921
and sort of been forced to persist there for decades. And so this idea of blight and Greenwood
really traces its way all the way back to 1921
and the fact that Black Tulsans had to rebuild
with very little help from the white community.
Many of them had no insurance
because they couldn't get insurance
because they were African-American
and because of the nature of the destruction.
And so it's not the same as a white grocery store owner,
his grocery store burning down. It's not the same. If the bank has burned down and the bank has your
money, what's next friend? Do you know what I mean? The bank burns down and the bank has your
money. This concept of like FDIC, oh, the government will insure your funds. That didn't exist yet. Many, many people
lost literally everything. And so the fact that they were able to rebuild anything at all is a
testament to their community ties, to their hard work and dedication, to their refusal to give up.
But I want to hear more about the sort of the
second destruction of Greenwood. And just quickly to your point about insurance claims, even the
folks who did have insurance, those claims were not honored. Again, talking about Lula Williams,
she had several insurance policies that should have paid her back tens of thousands of dollars.
They were never honored. And one of the reasons they were not honored is because at the time this event was called a riot. And so if the event is being portrayed as an even-handed
battle between white Tulsa and black Tulsa that the police could have done nothing about,
the insurance companies can say, well, it's not our problem. So that idea about terminology and
how we name things, it has a lot of legal repercussions in this example. And then so
we had the second destruction of Greenwood in the 60s and 70s, which in my book, I call it a slower burn.
Because if you really think about it, Greenwood was destroyed in two days in 1921. It took about
20 years to take the community out in the 60s and 70s. And so for me, I think it's really important
to sort of retrace those steps and put those puzzle pieces back together, because often institutions have much longer memories than we do as regular folks.
And so when you sort of see the whole thing spooled out for you in terms of how urban renewal actually unfurled, you see that actually is presented as a good thing to Greenwood.
If you're living in a community, a black community that's been denied resources for generations by your government, and the government comes by one day and says, hey, we have this great plan called
urban renewal. We're going to renew your neighborhood. That sounds like a good deal.
The reason everything went awry, there's a few things, but I think the main reason it went awry
really comes down to money. In the case of Greenwood, there was so much money being put
into the destruction of the community, the raising of so-called blighted houses and businesses, but there were no follow-up funds to rebuild the community
in a way that was positive. A lot of that goes back to the political jockeying. Urban renewal
in Greenwood was launched during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. It ended during the Nixon
and Ford administrations. The upshot of all of it is when you drive through Greenwood today,
there's huge tracts of empty land, hundreds of acres that are just empty,
that are owned by the urban renewal authority of Tulsa and have been for more than 50 years.
And so all of that really captures, I think, the physical outcomes that when you trace their way back, go back to the massacre. But there's a lot of psychological outcomes as well.
I'm actually from Montgomery, Alabama, which is another city with a lot of complex racial history. But growing up in Montgomery,
that history never really felt like mine. Rosa Parks story is America's story. Martin Luther
King's story is America's story. But in Tulsa, because the country never even got a chance to
learn about what happened here, it only made Tolson's story,
Greenwood's story. And so they had to carry that burden with them in silence for generations.
I've talked to people here in the community who never heard about Greenwood and the race massacre
from their parents and grandparents. I've talked to people who had to sort of process the fact
they had descended from this horrific event as adults and not have any space to sort of talk
through those issues with anyone else. And so I think even when you go to city council meetings
here, urban planning meetings, you just sort of see that frustration manifested. And I think when
people read my book, they'll better understand why the folks in this community are so frustrated,
why they're so passionate, why they're demanding justice today, 102 years after the race massacre, why it is still the most urgent issue in Tulsa.
It's because the city has never atoned for it in any substantial way.
And again, to underscore what you were saying earlier, this was the government of Tulsa,
The government of Tulsa, the Tulsa police force.
In some cases, there was like the National Guard.
So we're talking about the government actually assisting in the perpetration of this atrocity. This is not just like 10 random dudes and the government's like, we didn't have anything to do with it.
Like, no, no.
This was the government who was assisting in the perpetration of this. They completely failed to do with it. Like, no, no, this was the government who was assisting in
the perpetration of this. They completely failed to protect Greenwood. They passed laws that made
it almost impossible for Greenwood to recover. And so when you're talking about the city of Tulsa
atoning, we're talking about the actual city government that was involved in doing this.
They were also involved in the cover up afterwards. So again, we're not asking the city
to atone for something that random people did 102 years ago. We're asking the city to account for
what it did. Exactly. Not for just what private citizens did. Exactly. Exactly. Sometimes there
could be a disconnect in how that is conveyed by the city itself. Greenwood changed a lot in the
five years since I started this story. There's a lot more markers of commemoration in the community. You
know, we have a big, nice new museum called Greenwood Rising there. And I remember I went
to the groundbreaking for that new museum a few years ago, and the mayor of Tulsa was there
speaking. And he talked a lot about how horrible it was that people were murdered in the race
massacre. And that is true.
I don't disagree. It's horrific that happened. But I thought that that emphasis on murder and
murderers in some ways absolved the city of Tulsa because, you know, everyone who pulled the trigger
is gone. You know, we're not going to prosecute them. So when we focus on the quote unquote
murderers, we're almost absolving the institutions from any kind of liability. And so I just sort of
note, I've noticed that in the way
the city has acknowledged what's going on here now because it's become a national story,
but they sort of frame things in such a way that it's very individually focused instead of
institution focused. And so I think that's an issue that I think people need to be aware of.
Again, there's a lot of language games involved in the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre,
and that's another one of them. And there are still people trying to this day, elderly people, trying to get justice for what happened to their families as a result of the massacre 102 years ago.
What can you tell us about their lawsuits?
what can you tell us about their lawsuits? As the city of Tulsa was gearing up for the 100 year anniversary of the race massacre through a lot of commemorations and symbolism,
a group of survivors of the massacre said, no, we want actual tangible outcomes. We want
restitution. And that's not a museum and it's not a plaque. In 2020, a lawsuit was filed by
three living survivors of the race massacre, as well as several descendants of
the massacre, claiming essentially that Tulsa created a public nuisance during the event.
Essentially, the idea is that if a city government sort of creates a scenario in which a community
is harmed, they can be held liable for that. And so this case has been winding its way through
the courts for the last few years. It's faced some challenges. The judge who's
presiding over the case actually dismissed all the descendants a few months ago, essentially
asserting that if you were not actually there in Tulsa in 1921, you sort of can't be part of this
case. And right now we're kind of waiting for a final decision about whether the case will proceed
to trial. And that's really important because we've already talked about all of this destroyed
evidence, efforts at obfuscation.
If there is a trial, at least we'll go through the process of discovery and we'll find out what Tulsa has been trying to hide all these years.
Right now, it's going to be a challenge. It may even be a challenge to convince the judge that they don't want to dismiss the trial at all.
But I think whether or not this case succeeds, we all understand that Greenwood is going to keep fighting.
This is not the first lawsuit against the city of Tulsa.
It's not the first effort to seek justice.
There will be plenty of others, whether this case succeeds or not.
I have one last question for you,
and I really want people to read your book,
which I think is just
so illuminating. And you've dedicated years of your life to researching this. You were telling
me before we even started recording, they actually moved to Tulsa to be able to really immerse
yourself in the community and to be able to dedicate your time to researching Built from
the Fire. But what is it that you hope that the average American who
might pick up your book, what is it that you hope they get from it? I think people need to understand
that our country does not make linear progress. I think that when I was a little bit younger,
it was sort of put into my brain that America was
always getting better. We're always becoming a better place. And I think when you learn about
something like the Tulsa race massacre, it really scrambles that notion that America is always going
to be getting better, that we don't have huge setbacks, that if we're not vigilant, the most
horrific things cannot occur to us. And so I really think of them when you study the race massacre and learn about these people, you come to understand that there is a dark undercurrent to our country that we have to
be vigilant to stamp out at all times. I personally feel like that dark undercurrent is getting
stronger these days with a lot that's going on with our politics, our division, the more blatant
racism that we see, the limitations of what can be taught in schools.
All these things to me, in some ways, mirror this sort of slow escalation that was going on in Tulsa
in the 1910s. And so I really hope that when people read this book, they're really thinking
about how does this relate to the present day. History isn't just a set of facts that are etched
in amber. It has an impact on what's going on right now. And so I hope that when people read this book, the history comes alive for
them, not only in a way that's sort of quote unquote entertaining, but in a way that feels
urgent and necessary for our current times. I love that. So good. Thank you so much for being
here today, Victor. And thank you for your years of work on a topic that we all need to know more about.
Thank you so much, Sharon. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for listening today. You can pick up Victor Lucerson's book,
Built from the Fire, wherever you prefer to get your books. I'll see you next time.
This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson.
Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder.
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