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A review by cashleigh98
Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street by Victor Luckerson
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I cried my eyes out reading parts of this book. I love the way Luckerson takes so much care with the people, past and present, who inhabited Greenwood. In particular, Mrs. Loula Williams, a Black woman who owned and operated not one but two businesses. We follow her accomplishments and the way that the massacre upends her life and dreams. When at the end, her descendants visit her grave to care for her plot, I BAWLED.
I loved the way he centers the Black women who were pivotal for the formation of Black Wall Street and for the movement to preserve and restore the Greenwood community to its former glory and its determined search for justice for the survivors and descendants. Luckerson also does a remarkable job weaving past and present, tracking all the through lines to the modern political landscape where the reverberating effects of the massacre and resulting predatory legislation and government funded programs are being debated. He is a truly gifted writer— constructing a book with this amount of cited information that still manages to captivate in its narrative story-telling is mind-blowing to me.
I’m so glad that I read this, and I hope you will too. It’s extremely dense with information, and of course, some events are hard to read about, but I think a main takeaway from the book is that looking back at the past and learning, acknowledging, and making actionable change to repair the damage is how we can heal. Sometimes that means reading shit that makes you really sad or incredibly angry, but it’s still worth it. Highly recommend for anyone and everyone.
I loved the way he centers the Black women who were pivotal for the formation of Black Wall Street and for the movement to preserve and restore the Greenwood community to its former glory and its determined search for justice for the survivors and descendants. Luckerson also does a remarkable job weaving past and present, tracking all the through lines to the modern political landscape where the reverberating effects of the massacre and resulting predatory legislation and government funded programs are being debated. He is a truly gifted writer— constructing a book with this amount of cited information that still manages to captivate in its narrative story-telling is mind-blowing to me.
I’m so glad that I read this, and I hope you will too. It’s extremely dense with information, and of course, some events are hard to read about, but I think a main takeaway from the book is that looking back at the past and learning, acknowledging, and making actionable change to repair the damage is how we can heal. Sometimes that means reading shit that makes you really sad or incredibly angry, but it’s still worth it. Highly recommend for anyone and everyone.