Reviews - Built from the Fire

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75 reviews for:

Built from the Fire

Victor Luckerson

4.45 AVERAGE

staccatosounds's review

5.0

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

"Fire wielding monsters hadn't been able to destroy Greenwood, but urban planners and real estate developers did it with ease. It was just a slower burn." (327)

I went into this book expecting a history of Black Wall Street and the Massacre itself, with maybe some important context woven in. And, let me be clear, I got that! But I also got a detailed look at the wider Greenwood neighborhood, the tensions and ideologies leading up to the Massacre, the resulting domino effects that affect Tulsa to this day, and maybe most importantly, a few of the Tulsans who were affected that night and their descendants.

Built from the Fire isn't just a history, it's a love letter to North Tulsa, inside of Greenwood and out.

I looked up the author about halfway through this book because I wanted to know more background on him. I had assumed he grew up somewhere in Tulsa, maybe went to Booker T himself. When I discovered that he is not from Tulsa at all, and moved to Tulsa to write this book, I was shocked. The way he navigates through Tulsa so deftly speaks to the incredible amount of research and time that went into this book.

Some other reviews described it as long and difficult to get through--and it is, don't get me wrong. It took me 6 months to finish this book. But not because it wasn't compelling or the prose was difficult; I just had to put the book down every 30 pages or so from overwhelm. This book made me nostalgic for a Greenwood that never had the chance to exist.

Being fully honest, if you're not from the Tulsa area, this might be a little harder to read. Being able to visualize the exact spots in my mind where these events occurred helped to ground me in the narratives a bit. Still, though, I think it is absolutely worth the read. This specific event might be unique to Tulsa, but the resulting effects are easily recognizable in any major US city.

Also, don't be put off by the size--the book ends at page 492, with the rest of the pages devoted to citations and an index. When I mentioned this book was well researched, I meant it.

yhtak's review against another edition

3.75

informative reflective sad slow-paced

kdahlo's review against another edition

4.0

I knew to expect the story of the Greenwood massacre, but that history hardly scratches the surface of this book, which brings the reader nearly to the present day. I thought the near-present analysis of the way Greenwood has been celebrated and exploited as a symbol contained some of the strongest material of the whole book. I also appreciated the talent of the author who could assemble a vivid narrative both from historical material and on-the-ground journalism, and weave it all into a single story.

On a personal level, I found this to be a valuable meditation on how to build things that last in an unjust society. There are a lot of lessons, positive and negative, in this book.