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The Almost Church
A critique of contemporary practices of worship, faith development and leadership in Unitarian Universalist congregations.
88 pages
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 26, 2021
The Victory of Greenwood tells the story of Greenwood, the Black neighborhood in Tulsa, OK as told to the author. It’s not solely about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre but the people who lived through it and helped to rebuild it. The book is filled with stories of business people, entrepreneurs, leaders, innovators, doctors, newspapermen, etc. Each chapter chronicles the life and legacy of a person or institution that had a connection to Greenwood. Each chapter is accompanied by a picture of the subject, which I found very helpful in humanizing each person. The author does a great job of telling the story of the massacre based on how each person or institution experienced it. I also liked how different revelations of the massacre came out in each story, for example the fact that the massacre was pre-planned and that planes were used to drop bombs on the Black residents and property. My favorite people to read about: BC Franklin, Maurice Willows and the Red Cross, Dr. Olivia Hooker, Jake Simmons, Vernon AME Church, and Booker T. Washington High School. I do wish that they had included stories from other survivors who are still alive such as Hughes Van Ellis and Viola Fletcher.
Check out this chat between Carlos Moreno, the author of The Victory of Greenwood, and myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhlK...
Check out this chat between Carlos Moreno, the author of The Victory of Greenwood, and myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhlK...
September 5, 2021
A fine series of essays that brought to life many African-American families who are part of the larger Greenwood story. Many names I recognized and others that were new to me.
May 13, 2019
For a while, I tried being a Unitarian. Like so many religions, I found that the basic theology that created the religion had long since faded into the distant past and no longer reflected the practices of the current church.
I liked the original theology as expressed so well in this book, but my experience of the actual church did not match up. Currently, I found the church to not hold the "God as one being" idea at all; most members, at least, don't seem to see that and were, instead, atheist. What I found was an organization with no clear theology or dogma, which I liked and probably was searching for, but also with no direction or unifying vision. It obsessed over LGBT issues, becoming one more institution that made LGBT a kind of "other" and total focus of living, rather than seeing it as part of a whole or as simply a part of a person, not their whole being. In other words, LGBT people are also workers, managers, entrepreneurs, surfers, hobbyists, democrats, chefs, and everything else. The theology expressed in this book made a point of stressing that but the actual religious practice lost sight of that idea.
I liked the original theology as expressed so well in this book, but my experience of the actual church did not match up. Currently, I found the church to not hold the "God as one being" idea at all; most members, at least, don't seem to see that and were, instead, atheist. What I found was an organization with no clear theology or dogma, which I liked and probably was searching for, but also with no direction or unifying vision. It obsessed over LGBT issues, becoming one more institution that made LGBT a kind of "other" and total focus of living, rather than seeing it as part of a whole or as simply a part of a person, not their whole being. In other words, LGBT people are also workers, managers, entrepreneurs, surfers, hobbyists, democrats, chefs, and everything else. The theology expressed in this book made a point of stressing that but the actual religious practice lost sight of that idea.
January 13, 2026
As I write this review, Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a much talked-about city. It’s the official capital of Route 66 as the Mother Road begins its Centennial celebrations. Beyond Tulsa King, with Sylvester Stallone, and Killers of the Flower Moon (the David Grann book and Martin Scorsese film), The Lowdown, a “love letter to Tulsa” starring Ethan Hawke (announced for a second season recently) has everyone talking.
I first fell in love with Tulsa (and realized its sociopolitical complexities) in the summer of 2019, when I was hired to portray Ernesto “Che” Guevara for a 3-week Chautauqua tour that started there. Protests were loud and increased as I moved west across Oklahoma, portraying this controversial physician and revolutionary. I returned 3 years later as Beat poet and activist Allen Ginsberg. The protests came from somewhat separate sectors, but were essentially the same. How fitting to have a police officer standing at the back of the stage, 10 feet behind me, as Ginsberg recited lines from “Howl” and “America.” Since then, I’ve returned several times for a number of presentations about Route 66 and for several in-process immersive and performance projects, and I’ll be “living on Tulsa time,” as Don Williams sang, several times in 2026.
When I was first in Tulsa, I visited the local historical society ahead of a presentation I was doing there. It was then that I had my introduction to the Tulsa Race Riot, as it was then being called. A year or so later, Riot was replaced with Massacre, and rightfully so. I was shocked at the events of May 30 and June 1, 1921, touched off when a 19-year-old Black man accidently made physical contact with a White female elevator operator. In an appalling act of racist-fueled savagery, 35 blocks of the Greenwood district, known as Black Wall Street, were looted, burned, and otherwise destroyed—including by half a dozen planes dropping turpentine balls on homes and businesses. Three hundred people were massacred, including a nationally respected surgeon shot twice in the chest with a shotgun as he stood, arms raised high in surrender, in his own front yard.
In the ensuing 5 years, I’ve been committed to learning about these events and including them in my Route 66–themed historical-education and immersive experience projects. I’ve talked with a plethora of locals and authors, and no one tells quite the exact same story. This is not surprising. Given the obfuscations of the mayor, police leadership, and the nefarious aims of wealthy individuals who were looking for a pretext to seize this prosperous section of Tulsa for industrialization, the true story is bound to be difficult to uncover.
I first connected with the author of this well-researched and beautifully written book, activist and journalist Carlos Moreno, through social media several years ago, and we met in person in the summer of 2025—fittingly, in Greenwood, less than a week after a tragic shooting there during a Juneteenth celebration. As part of my research for an immersive experience I’ve been contracted to cocreate, I read The Victory of Greenwood alongside books on sundown towns, the Green Book, and the experiences of Black travelers from the early 1900s through the time of the Civil Rights movement and subsequent legislation.
Not that racism, segregation, and dangers to Black travelers magically disappeared in the 1960s. And, when it comes to who was complicit, the matter of reparations concerning Greenwood, and the status of race relations in Tulsa, the debates continue to rage.
The Victory of Greenwood is about so much more than the Massacre itself—although it is well covered. The book is, in the end, a celebration of Black Joy. Of Mother Wit. Of fighting for the right to not only Survive but to Thrive. Through a series of biographies, Moreno introduces us to teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and everyday folk who are indelibly interwoven with the rise, fall, and rise again of Greenwood. If you’ve seen films such as The Green Book, Sinners, and Jazzman’s Blues, and/or the HBO series Lovecraft Country, you’ll have a sense of how immense spirit, abiding faith, family, music, and community saw African Americans through frightening, violent, and nightmarish times.
The Victory of Greenwood will magnify and personalize these works as you read it. You’ll also find great inspiration and motivation in these Troubled Times from the biographies and the chapters on institutions such as the Vernon AME Church and Booker T. Washington High School. You’ll also see how those who lived and worked in Greenwood have made considerable contributions throughout America.
Those interested in how the stories reported on and otherwise disseminated by often-opposing parties and interests are purposely warped and used for manipulation and control like a game of sinister Telephone will find much that’s instructive here.
Like Greenwood itself, Moreno’s The Victory of Greenwood will endure for its fearless reporting of macro racism in America (by focusing on the micro) and its celebration of how those who have suffered at racism’s gnarled and bloodied hands strive to this day to not only Survive but to Thrive in the face of its relentless, ongoing injustices and cruelties.
I first fell in love with Tulsa (and realized its sociopolitical complexities) in the summer of 2019, when I was hired to portray Ernesto “Che” Guevara for a 3-week Chautauqua tour that started there. Protests were loud and increased as I moved west across Oklahoma, portraying this controversial physician and revolutionary. I returned 3 years later as Beat poet and activist Allen Ginsberg. The protests came from somewhat separate sectors, but were essentially the same. How fitting to have a police officer standing at the back of the stage, 10 feet behind me, as Ginsberg recited lines from “Howl” and “America.” Since then, I’ve returned several times for a number of presentations about Route 66 and for several in-process immersive and performance projects, and I’ll be “living on Tulsa time,” as Don Williams sang, several times in 2026.
When I was first in Tulsa, I visited the local historical society ahead of a presentation I was doing there. It was then that I had my introduction to the Tulsa Race Riot, as it was then being called. A year or so later, Riot was replaced with Massacre, and rightfully so. I was shocked at the events of May 30 and June 1, 1921, touched off when a 19-year-old Black man accidently made physical contact with a White female elevator operator. In an appalling act of racist-fueled savagery, 35 blocks of the Greenwood district, known as Black Wall Street, were looted, burned, and otherwise destroyed—including by half a dozen planes dropping turpentine balls on homes and businesses. Three hundred people were massacred, including a nationally respected surgeon shot twice in the chest with a shotgun as he stood, arms raised high in surrender, in his own front yard.
In the ensuing 5 years, I’ve been committed to learning about these events and including them in my Route 66–themed historical-education and immersive experience projects. I’ve talked with a plethora of locals and authors, and no one tells quite the exact same story. This is not surprising. Given the obfuscations of the mayor, police leadership, and the nefarious aims of wealthy individuals who were looking for a pretext to seize this prosperous section of Tulsa for industrialization, the true story is bound to be difficult to uncover.
I first connected with the author of this well-researched and beautifully written book, activist and journalist Carlos Moreno, through social media several years ago, and we met in person in the summer of 2025—fittingly, in Greenwood, less than a week after a tragic shooting there during a Juneteenth celebration. As part of my research for an immersive experience I’ve been contracted to cocreate, I read The Victory of Greenwood alongside books on sundown towns, the Green Book, and the experiences of Black travelers from the early 1900s through the time of the Civil Rights movement and subsequent legislation.
Not that racism, segregation, and dangers to Black travelers magically disappeared in the 1960s. And, when it comes to who was complicit, the matter of reparations concerning Greenwood, and the status of race relations in Tulsa, the debates continue to rage.
The Victory of Greenwood is about so much more than the Massacre itself—although it is well covered. The book is, in the end, a celebration of Black Joy. Of Mother Wit. Of fighting for the right to not only Survive but to Thrive. Through a series of biographies, Moreno introduces us to teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and everyday folk who are indelibly interwoven with the rise, fall, and rise again of Greenwood. If you’ve seen films such as The Green Book, Sinners, and Jazzman’s Blues, and/or the HBO series Lovecraft Country, you’ll have a sense of how immense spirit, abiding faith, family, music, and community saw African Americans through frightening, violent, and nightmarish times.
The Victory of Greenwood will magnify and personalize these works as you read it. You’ll also find great inspiration and motivation in these Troubled Times from the biographies and the chapters on institutions such as the Vernon AME Church and Booker T. Washington High School. You’ll also see how those who lived and worked in Greenwood have made considerable contributions throughout America.
Those interested in how the stories reported on and otherwise disseminated by often-opposing parties and interests are purposely warped and used for manipulation and control like a game of sinister Telephone will find much that’s instructive here.
Like Greenwood itself, Moreno’s The Victory of Greenwood will endure for its fearless reporting of macro racism in America (by focusing on the micro) and its celebration of how those who have suffered at racism’s gnarled and bloodied hands strive to this day to not only Survive but to Thrive in the face of its relentless, ongoing injustices and cruelties.
August 17, 2021
The history of Tulsa's Greenwood community is rich with interesting characters from all walks of life. Their contributions to Tulsa's history is self-evident in their successes and determination to succeed amidst extreme odds.
September 24, 2009
I had trouble getting into this book, perhaps because I am new to Unitarian Universalism and it got into the nitty-gritty of the culture of the denomination, how churches are run, etc. I agreed with some of the issues he raised- such as need for revitalizing liturgy and developing a clearer U.U. identity.
I am glad to say though, that many of the problems he discussed are not present, or less of a problem in our church- Unity Unitarian in St. Paul. Unity is very welcoming and emphasizes stewardship, both in sharing talents and money and he claimed those were big problems in many other U.U. churches. And the congregation is *growing* not shrinking!
Of interest mainly to more experienced U.U. leaders.
I am glad to say though, that many of the problems he discussed are not present, or less of a problem in our church- Unity Unitarian in St. Paul. Unity is very welcoming and emphasizes stewardship, both in sharing talents and money and he claimed those were big problems in many other U.U. churches. And the congregation is *growing* not shrinking!
Of interest mainly to more experienced U.U. leaders.
September 2, 2008
A critique of contemporary practices of worship, faith development and leadership in Unitarian Universalist congregations.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews