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Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street
A multigenerational saga of a family and a community in Tulsa’s Greenwood district, known as “Black Wall Street,” that in one century survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, urban renewal, and gentrification
“Ambitious . . . absorbing . . . By the end of Luckerson’s outstanding book, the idea of building something new from the ashes of what has been destroyed becomes comprehensible, even hopeful.”—Marcia Chatelain, The New York Times
WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history.
The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. Ed bought a newspaper to chronicle Greenwood’s resurgence and battles against white bigotry, and his son Jim, an attorney, embodied the family’s hopes for the civil rights movement. But by the 1970s urban renewal policies had nearly emptied the neighborhood. Today the newspaper remains, and Ed’s granddaughter Regina represents the neighborhood in the Oklahoma state legislature, working alongside a new generation of local activists to revive it once again.
In Built from the Fire, journalist Victor Luckerson tells the true story behind a potent national symbol of success and solidarity and weaves an epic tale about a neighborhood that refused, more than once, to be erased.
“Ambitious . . . absorbing . . . By the end of Luckerson’s outstanding book, the idea of building something new from the ashes of what has been destroyed becomes comprehensible, even hopeful.”—Marcia Chatelain, The New York Times
WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history.
The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. Ed bought a newspaper to chronicle Greenwood’s resurgence and battles against white bigotry, and his son Jim, an attorney, embodied the family’s hopes for the civil rights movement. But by the 1970s urban renewal policies had nearly emptied the neighborhood. Today the newspaper remains, and Ed’s granddaughter Regina represents the neighborhood in the Oklahoma state legislature, working alongside a new generation of local activists to revive it once again.
In Built from the Fire, journalist Victor Luckerson tells the true story behind a potent national symbol of success and solidarity and weaves an epic tale about a neighborhood that refused, more than once, to be erased.
664 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 23, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 142 reviews
April 19, 2023
I’ve been curious to read more about Greenwood, known as the Black Wall Street of Tulsa, for several years. It was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921, when mobs of white residents attacked the black community, burning the buildings and killing many of the citizens. It remains one of the worst racial violence incidents to this day. So I was glad to see that Victor Luckerson had written an entire book about it.
Luckerson starts with an in-depth exploration of the community. Like Erik Larson, Luckerson is adept at weaving multiple strands of knowledge, including current local and national politics, social norms and economics into a unified whole.
As you would expect, the chapters about the massacre are gruesome. While America had seen other incidents of racial violence in the prior years, this went well beyond those atrocities. There was all manner of violence, even using airplanes to strafe and drop explosives. The white mob grew to include women and children, who ransacked the homes and businesses.
But as bad as the ransacking of Greenwood was, what followed was even worse. White businessmen tried to make sure that Greenwood was not rebuilt or that the citizens were not fairly compensated. But the citizens of Greenwood were not to be so easily manipulated. The book doesn’t stop with the 1920s. It follows the community through the following 100 years. By the 1970s, “urban renewal” had managed to destroy huge swaths of the community. The later decades tend to focus more on issues that affected Black communities throughout the country or state, with local examples. Although he makes a point of showing how repercussions from the Massacre lasted for decades afterwards. And a continuing thread through the later chapters is the fight for reparations.
This is a well researched, detailed book. The author includes numerous pictures of the individuals involved as well as the area which greatly added to my feel for the subject.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
Luckerson starts with an in-depth exploration of the community. Like Erik Larson, Luckerson is adept at weaving multiple strands of knowledge, including current local and national politics, social norms and economics into a unified whole.
As you would expect, the chapters about the massacre are gruesome. While America had seen other incidents of racial violence in the prior years, this went well beyond those atrocities. There was all manner of violence, even using airplanes to strafe and drop explosives. The white mob grew to include women and children, who ransacked the homes and businesses.
But as bad as the ransacking of Greenwood was, what followed was even worse. White businessmen tried to make sure that Greenwood was not rebuilt or that the citizens were not fairly compensated. But the citizens of Greenwood were not to be so easily manipulated. The book doesn’t stop with the 1920s. It follows the community through the following 100 years. By the 1970s, “urban renewal” had managed to destroy huge swaths of the community. The later decades tend to focus more on issues that affected Black communities throughout the country or state, with local examples. Although he makes a point of showing how repercussions from the Massacre lasted for decades afterwards. And a continuing thread through the later chapters is the fight for reparations.
This is a well researched, detailed book. The author includes numerous pictures of the individuals involved as well as the area which greatly added to my feel for the subject.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
July 7, 2023
This book will make you angry. Read it anyway.
This book will make you cry. Read it anyway.
This book will push you into activism. Excellent.
This book will absolutely change you. THIS is why you should read it.
Told through the generations of the Goodwin family, this is the story of Greenwood [Tulsa's Black Wall Street], a prosperous Black community that was thriving and growing and how it was almost completely destroyed in one night by a mob of angry white people bent on revenge, hate, and putting "those people into their right place" and how the survivors of that massacre have struggled for years to both put their lives back together AND to get restoration, retribution, and reparations [and are still struggling to this day]. How fragile must the white ego be to not be able to say out loud that what happened over a hundred years ago now, was not only wrong, but illegal and immoral and that the city of Tulsa owes these survivors more than they will ever be able to give? SO much of how the "people in charge" acted and continue to act made me physically ill, angry and very ashamed and made my heart hurt for the survivors families that just are trying to have a better life and keep the memory of those lost in the massacre alive; I can only hope that there comes a day when all of this happens and they are able to be at peace - both the descendants AND the people who came before. We can hope.
Thank you to Victor Luckerson for writing this book - I cannot even imagine how difficult it must have been at times and what you have accomplished cannot be overstated. Well done sir, well done.
I was asked to read/review this book and I thank Random House Publishing Group/Random House for the opportunity to give an honest review to this ARC.
This book will make you cry. Read it anyway.
This book will push you into activism. Excellent.
This book will absolutely change you. THIS is why you should read it.
Told through the generations of the Goodwin family, this is the story of Greenwood [Tulsa's Black Wall Street], a prosperous Black community that was thriving and growing and how it was almost completely destroyed in one night by a mob of angry white people bent on revenge, hate, and putting "those people into their right place" and how the survivors of that massacre have struggled for years to both put their lives back together AND to get restoration, retribution, and reparations [and are still struggling to this day]. How fragile must the white ego be to not be able to say out loud that what happened over a hundred years ago now, was not only wrong, but illegal and immoral and that the city of Tulsa owes these survivors more than they will ever be able to give? SO much of how the "people in charge" acted and continue to act made me physically ill, angry and very ashamed and made my heart hurt for the survivors families that just are trying to have a better life and keep the memory of those lost in the massacre alive; I can only hope that there comes a day when all of this happens and they are able to be at peace - both the descendants AND the people who came before. We can hope.
Thank you to Victor Luckerson for writing this book - I cannot even imagine how difficult it must have been at times and what you have accomplished cannot be overstated. Well done sir, well done.
I was asked to read/review this book and I thank Random House Publishing Group/Random House for the opportunity to give an honest review to this ARC.
Read
February 3, 2023I was reading this author's blog when he lived for months in the place this book is about. I suspect his book will be compelling and inspiring. More will be here when I get to read it.
Preview available now at
https://open.substack.com/pub/runitba...
Preview available now at
https://open.substack.com/pub/runitba...
May 16, 2023
As retribution for the alleged accosting of a white woman (which didn't happen), white Tulsa massacred the Black neighborhood, Greenwood, in 1921. To add insult to injury, they then actively sought to defraud the people whose homes and businesses they destroyed. Thoroughly researched and told through historical documents and first hand accounts from several, focusing on the prominent Goodwin family, this book details the lead up to and aftermath of the devastation to the present time where survivors and descendants of those attacked are still seeking some type restitution. While initially focused on Greenwood, the focus of the book expands to encompass the country and several other events that have taken place in the fight for equality and equity. At points it perhaps tries to bring in too much but I think that might just be the point. All these events combine for a systemic and overwhelming impact on our Black countrymen. These past traumas and the ongoing consequences must be faced for us to be a stronger country. This book is hopefully a step in educating white America on why that needs to be done.
Thanks to Random House for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.
Thanks to Random House for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.
May 4, 2023
Built From the Fire promises to be an "epic story," but aside from length, it doesn't quite hit the mark. Telling the story of Greenwood, the Tulsa Race Massacre and its aftermath, and what came next as Greenwood was rebuilt--as told using historical accounts of families and individuals who survived it--author Luckerson focuses mostly on the Goodwin family, and mostly its men. It starts off well, with an excellent account of Greenwood's early years and the horrific Massacre in which hundreds of Black citizens were murdered by Whites. But as the narrative goes on, Luckerson makes more and more assumptions without substantiation, and becomes more subjective about what happened as Greenwood tried to rebuild. At the end of the book, the story becomes mired in legislative details and minutia and that was completely numbing. I can't help but think that there's a better book out there chronicling Greenwood's recovery.
September 4, 2023
What an eye-opener - 100 years and 656 pages of Black History as told through the horror of the Tulsa Race Massacre. This is written like a textbook and that’s what it should be for any college course on the subject.
Unfortunately, Blacks being murdered by white citizens and police officers is still the norm. Everyday highlights another atrocity. The corruption and bigotry just never end.
This took me ages to read because I was visited by both Hurricane Idalia and my son!! It is very, very detailed and well researched. Not a book to whip through, but won to ponder and admire the efforts the people of Greenwood are trying to accomplish.
Unfortunately, Blacks being murdered by white citizens and police officers is still the norm. Everyday highlights another atrocity. The corruption and bigotry just never end.
This took me ages to read because I was visited by both Hurricane Idalia and my son!! It is very, very detailed and well researched. Not a book to whip through, but won to ponder and admire the efforts the people of Greenwood are trying to accomplish.
September 1, 2023
Luckerson does a great job telling this story in a way that is more than sad and angering, it is very thought provoking. Especially for someone like me who has been very privileged my whole life, it makes me see gentrification in a new light. His writing style makes it feel very personal. Reminds me of Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns.
November 26, 2023
The subject is essential to learn, but this book was a bit dry and extremely long.
February 22, 2024
There is so much to unpack here. If you are looking for a thorough and thoughtful delve into the history of Greenwood, you’d be hard pressed to find something better.
March 15, 2024
Lots of sad history we have that is never taught which maybe explains how we still haven’t chose better. This book covers history and current day, which are both the same.
October 21, 2024
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is so much more than just the story of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre of hundreds of Black Tulsans along Greenwood Ave in north Tulsa. It is about that for sure. But it is more about the resilience, the strength of will of the survivors to rebuild even to this day despite the many obstacles politicians at the city and state level have thrown at the Greenwood community leaders.
I understand why it won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for non fiction.
I understand why it won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for non fiction.
December 29, 2023
A stunning work documenting the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa beyond the race massacre of 1921. So thorough and yet reads quickly.
January 13, 2024
This book is lengthy and can be dry, so it’s not for everybody! But the subject matter is important and well-researched. It is sad how many things in this book are still the same now.
April 9, 2024
Fantastic and heart-breaking and tragic. It makes me angry, but that is why we so desperately need to read this.
Every American should have to read this. And know history is still going on today.
Every American should have to read this. And know history is still going on today.
June 26, 2024
This book is fantastic. It's long - but don't be intimidated by that.
July 27, 2024
The first half of the book is heartbreaking and the second half is hopeful, filled with advancements and setbacks moving toward progress. I very much enjoyed the writing.
September 1, 2024
“What happened in Tulsa at each historical juncture was not unique, but it was uniquely well documented”
Read
September 29, 2023Excellent. Well researched and well told history of Black experience in Tulsa from before statehood to present day, following the Goodwin family. Much to ponder, as I reflect on how my experience as a white personal in Tulsa was so vastly different from my Black classmates.
Glad to see a few of the names of white men who took part in the violence and/or belonged to KKK in Tulsa, as somehow, events are always portrayed as just happening but attributable to no one in particular:
ES Maqueen
Claud “Yellow Hammer” Cranfield
Police officer Irish Bullard
Police officer William Maudlin
Police officer IS Pittman
Tate Brady
Merritt J Glass, real estate investor
Wash Hudson, attorney
Mayor Herman Newblock
The book is helpful in understanding the deeply baked in white supremacy at the heart of Tulsa and Oklahoma power structures.
Glad to see a few of the names of white men who took part in the violence and/or belonged to KKK in Tulsa, as somehow, events are always portrayed as just happening but attributable to no one in particular:
ES Maqueen
Claud “Yellow Hammer” Cranfield
Police officer Irish Bullard
Police officer William Maudlin
Police officer IS Pittman
Tate Brady
Merritt J Glass, real estate investor
Wash Hudson, attorney
Mayor Herman Newblock
The book is helpful in understanding the deeply baked in white supremacy at the heart of Tulsa and Oklahoma power structures.
March 23, 2024
This book was long (19 hours) but such a wonderful, sprawling history of the Greenwood/Tulsa Massacre and its aftermath. By following the stories of the families who shaped and influenced Greenwood through the years, it was a much more engaging and narrative retelling of history. Tomorrow, I leave to visit the area so I’m glad to have a fuller understanding of the area’s history in advance of my visit.
July 1, 2024
This thing took forever to finish but I guess I wrapped it up in under a month. Goodreads says it's 672 pages but almost 200 of those are the index and bibliography. This thing was quite the undertaking - very informative stuff - but kind of fell into the more information than you require nonfiction reads. That said, if you're looking for the definitive history of Greenwood, this is place to start.
August 3, 2024
A powerful retelling of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the 100 years that followed. Through Greenwood’s story, Luckerson shows the ways not only interpersonal racism in the form of a white riot but also structural racism in the form of government underinvestment, highway construction meant to divide and relocate a Black community, and poor policing conspired to tear down a community, however resilient.
January 19, 2024
3.5 stars. So well researched. I went into this wanting to know more about the Tulsa race massacre and that is part of the book but it really is a comprehensive history of Greenwood, especially the Eagle.
August 22, 2025
This book is amazing and infuriating. Amazing in what a group of people created, loss, and rebuilt. Infuriating that it was ever taken from them in the first place. Amazing in the strength, hope, and love of the people in Greenwood. Infuriating in the hate that caused the massacre. Read this book!!
June 3, 2025
I live here, right on the board of the Arts District and Greenwood. I knew the broad strokes, but this is so much more.
This state could be so much better. This city could be so much more.
This state could be so much better. This city could be so much more.
February 25, 2025
A well-researched longitudinal study of the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, not simply focused on the tragic massacre of 1921. Books like this often crescendo to the most well-known event (typically what draws people to the book in the first place) but this important work traces the far-reaching effects of the brutality inflicted on the community.
May 23, 2023
TL;DR
Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson tells the story of Greenwood, OK through generations of the Goodwin family. This book chronicles the changes from Tulsa Race Massacre to the present day challenges faced by the citizens of Greenwood. Highly Recommended.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
Review: Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, as the old saying goes. When you think about it, this is kind of a crap saying because we can only remember the history we’re taught. And, as the U.S. is seeing currently, bad actors work hard at suppressing history through book bans, censoring textbooks, controlling school curriculum, and undermining education and researchers. Lucky for us, there are people working to remind us of our history in hopes that we don’t forget. Historians, journalists, and activists work hard to keep all aspects of our shared history alive in our collective memory. One exemplary work is Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson. This book tells the story of the Goodwins of Greenwood, OK, just north of Tulsa. Their journey through the Tulsa Race Massacre to today shows the horror of and fortitude required of being black in the U.S. This is a book that won’t let us forget the horrifying events of that day, but it also shows us a people transcending the horror to make a better future.
James and Carli Goodwin decided to move from Water Valley, Mississippi to Greenwood, Oklahoma because it was call the Eden of the West. It was an experiment in black prosperity. They moved their family hoping for more, hoping for opportunity, and they found it. Greenwood had a black owned newspaper, movie theater, candy store, you name it; black Americans prospered in Greenwood. But cross the right street, and suddenly you would be in Tulsa, OK where white people lived and prospered, thanks to the oil boom. Segregation was still the law of the land when the Goodwins arrived. Lynching was a common practice, and most white people didn’t want to ‘mix’ with black people. All it took for a black man to be arrested was an accusation from a white woman, and this accusation would likely cost the man his life. This was the case for Dick Rowland, a shoeshine boy in Tulsa, OK. He was arrested, and rumors of a lynching circulated around both the white and black sections of town. Rowland was even moved from one location to another to help prevent a possible lynching. When a white crowd gathered round the jailhouse, an armed black crowd marched to his defense despite being vastly outnumbered. The sheriff sent the crowd back to Greenwood, but terror infected the white crowds’ hearts. Their fear of a black uprising seemed to be happening, and with the permission of local law enforcement, the massacre of black residents and burning of black property began.
Built from the Fire is in three parts. The first part is the build up to and immediate aftermath of the race massacre. Luckerson paints a portrait of Greenwood in great detail, and it sounded like the American Dream, or as much as black people are allowed to partake in the American Dream. Black businesses thrived; community grew, helped each other, and made a place with a small amount of hope. Luckerson grounds readers in the necessary information to see how despite the good times, it was all built upon a house of cards. We get to see the entrepreneurial families of Greenwood, and we learn about each of them. Readers learn how French soldiers in World War I had to adjust how they treated black soldiers to accommodate the white soldiers’ bigotry. Luckerson shows how black intellectuals visited and helped the Greenwood experience. In all, he paints a beautiful picture, and then he sets it on fire. Part II and Part III follow Greenwood through to the present day, showing that the experiment is not finished. Not by a long shot.
Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson is a third person historical work that uses the Goodwin family saga as an example of the larger Greenwood, OK saga. It’s a book worth dwelling in, and it will horrify you. It shows the best and worst of humanity within its pages. Luckerson’s writing balances history with the human story. Built from the Fire reads like a novel because Luckerson tells a story expertly; it just happens that this is a true story and that you’ll learn a lot by reading of the Goodwins’ lives.
History the GOP Would Rather We Forget
Currently, Republicans around the country are trying to ban books that highlight the racially charged history of the U.S., as if that wasn’t an essential thread of our history. Racism is baked into our founding document; the people who wrote our beloved constitution were slave owners. Still, modern conservatives want to believe that racism stopped with the Civil War. Mountains of evidence to the contrary, they still refuse to believe otherwise. It’s easy to see how because until The Watchmen, not many white people knew about the Tulsa Race Massacre, me included. Stuff like that wasn’t taught in our classes. Even in the modern U.S. history class I took in college, Greenwood and that horror wasn’t discussed. (I bet if I had take an African American studies class, it would have been discussed.) Granted, U.S. history covers a lot of time, and some things can, will, and should be left out. But should 19th century history have at least a mention of post-Reconstruction terror other than poll taxes, literacy tests, and lynching? I think so. (It’s been a few decades since I took a college class, so maybe this has changed.)
Built from the Fire is an example of why we can’t ever stop educating ourselves. Because the lasting effects of the Tulsa Race Massacre are still felt today. Luckerson not only reminds us of this event, but he reminds us of the toll it takes to this very day. Often, events like this are discussed as historical events, as if they were discrete periods of time that can be extracted without consequence. Luckerson destroys that, and it makes for a more impactful lesson.
One conservative dismissal of black criticism is that all that stuff happened in the past, why are ‘they’ still complaining about it today? I think this book is a good counter to this dismissal. (Yes, the conservative will just invent excuses to dismiss the book, too.) History is a current that affects us today. Excellent writers like Luckerson can shows us how history connects to today, as he does in Built from the Fire.
Institutional Racism on Display for All to See
Often with my conservative friends, they’ll dismiss structural, or institutional, racism as not existing. Luckerson shows through exhaustive research how institutional racism aided, abetted, and protected the white criminals. Often, those same white criminals were government officials or deputized by government officials. Whether the Tulsa or the Oklahoma or the Federal government, all protected white people and failed the black citizens. Luckerson has the evidence to show this, even using government documents to back it up. The very institutions of our nation worked against them in order to preserve the white supremacy from which it profited.
But it isn’t just governments that failed the black citizens. Insurance companies didn’t pay out on policies because the government claimed it was a riot. White ‘advisors’ sought to ‘help’ black people through purchases after their properties were destroyed. These vultures came in hoping to profit off of the destruction they likely participated in.
Hope
So far the review has focused on the negativity in the book. Maybe I’m focused on the wrong parts of the book. But I’m angry. I’m angry for the citizens of Greenwood; I’m angry for black Americans for whom racism isn’t a thing of the past; I’m angry for all marginalized groups as my nation falls back into its darkest impulses. But Built from the Fire is, I think, a hopeful book. Luckerson paints a lovely scene of a crowd outside the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Center on May 31, proclaimed Reconciliation Day, and their walk to John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, with its famous sculptures. This, and other acts of preservation, keep the lessons of that horrible time fresh for us in hopes of never repeating them. Luckerson talks about how the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce preserved the heart of the old business district. He shows how Regina Goodwin become an Oklahoma legislator. There are stories of hope.
Of course this isn’t a novel; so, it doesn’t have a happy ending. Luckerson writes about the protests around George Floyd, about Trump holding his first rally in Tulsa, and about Terrence Crutcher. Still, the Goodwins live and thrive in Greenwood. The Oklahoma Eagle celebrated a 100 year anniversary. Joe Biden acknowledged the devastation of urban renewal on Greenwood. Despite all that has happened, the Goodwins and black Americans continue to work to improve this country. To improve their lives. They have no choice, and yet they continue to do so within institutions and structures designed to specifically limit them. And they’re making progress. Small, maybe even microscopic progress, but progress nonetheless. That is hope.
Conclusion
Victor Luckerson’s Built from the Fire reminds us that the currents of history flow through contemporary society. Luckerson won’t let us forget what happened in Greenwood; he won’t let us forget how this nation and its institutions failed its citizens in their hour of need. He, and the residents of Greenwood, also won’t let us forget an era of America’s past that cannot be repeated. Highly recommended.
Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson tells the story of Greenwood, OK through generations of the Goodwin family. This book chronicles the changes from Tulsa Race Massacre to the present day challenges faced by the citizens of Greenwood. Highly Recommended.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
Review: Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, as the old saying goes. When you think about it, this is kind of a crap saying because we can only remember the history we’re taught. And, as the U.S. is seeing currently, bad actors work hard at suppressing history through book bans, censoring textbooks, controlling school curriculum, and undermining education and researchers. Lucky for us, there are people working to remind us of our history in hopes that we don’t forget. Historians, journalists, and activists work hard to keep all aspects of our shared history alive in our collective memory. One exemplary work is Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson. This book tells the story of the Goodwins of Greenwood, OK, just north of Tulsa. Their journey through the Tulsa Race Massacre to today shows the horror of and fortitude required of being black in the U.S. This is a book that won’t let us forget the horrifying events of that day, but it also shows us a people transcending the horror to make a better future.
James and Carli Goodwin decided to move from Water Valley, Mississippi to Greenwood, Oklahoma because it was call the Eden of the West. It was an experiment in black prosperity. They moved their family hoping for more, hoping for opportunity, and they found it. Greenwood had a black owned newspaper, movie theater, candy store, you name it; black Americans prospered in Greenwood. But cross the right street, and suddenly you would be in Tulsa, OK where white people lived and prospered, thanks to the oil boom. Segregation was still the law of the land when the Goodwins arrived. Lynching was a common practice, and most white people didn’t want to ‘mix’ with black people. All it took for a black man to be arrested was an accusation from a white woman, and this accusation would likely cost the man his life. This was the case for Dick Rowland, a shoeshine boy in Tulsa, OK. He was arrested, and rumors of a lynching circulated around both the white and black sections of town. Rowland was even moved from one location to another to help prevent a possible lynching. When a white crowd gathered round the jailhouse, an armed black crowd marched to his defense despite being vastly outnumbered. The sheriff sent the crowd back to Greenwood, but terror infected the white crowds’ hearts. Their fear of a black uprising seemed to be happening, and with the permission of local law enforcement, the massacre of black residents and burning of black property began.
Built from the Fire is in three parts. The first part is the build up to and immediate aftermath of the race massacre. Luckerson paints a portrait of Greenwood in great detail, and it sounded like the American Dream, or as much as black people are allowed to partake in the American Dream. Black businesses thrived; community grew, helped each other, and made a place with a small amount of hope. Luckerson grounds readers in the necessary information to see how despite the good times, it was all built upon a house of cards. We get to see the entrepreneurial families of Greenwood, and we learn about each of them. Readers learn how French soldiers in World War I had to adjust how they treated black soldiers to accommodate the white soldiers’ bigotry. Luckerson shows how black intellectuals visited and helped the Greenwood experience. In all, he paints a beautiful picture, and then he sets it on fire. Part II and Part III follow Greenwood through to the present day, showing that the experiment is not finished. Not by a long shot.
Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson is a third person historical work that uses the Goodwin family saga as an example of the larger Greenwood, OK saga. It’s a book worth dwelling in, and it will horrify you. It shows the best and worst of humanity within its pages. Luckerson’s writing balances history with the human story. Built from the Fire reads like a novel because Luckerson tells a story expertly; it just happens that this is a true story and that you’ll learn a lot by reading of the Goodwins’ lives.
History the GOP Would Rather We Forget
Currently, Republicans around the country are trying to ban books that highlight the racially charged history of the U.S., as if that wasn’t an essential thread of our history. Racism is baked into our founding document; the people who wrote our beloved constitution were slave owners. Still, modern conservatives want to believe that racism stopped with the Civil War. Mountains of evidence to the contrary, they still refuse to believe otherwise. It’s easy to see how because until The Watchmen, not many white people knew about the Tulsa Race Massacre, me included. Stuff like that wasn’t taught in our classes. Even in the modern U.S. history class I took in college, Greenwood and that horror wasn’t discussed. (I bet if I had take an African American studies class, it would have been discussed.) Granted, U.S. history covers a lot of time, and some things can, will, and should be left out. But should 19th century history have at least a mention of post-Reconstruction terror other than poll taxes, literacy tests, and lynching? I think so. (It’s been a few decades since I took a college class, so maybe this has changed.)
Built from the Fire is an example of why we can’t ever stop educating ourselves. Because the lasting effects of the Tulsa Race Massacre are still felt today. Luckerson not only reminds us of this event, but he reminds us of the toll it takes to this very day. Often, events like this are discussed as historical events, as if they were discrete periods of time that can be extracted without consequence. Luckerson destroys that, and it makes for a more impactful lesson.
One conservative dismissal of black criticism is that all that stuff happened in the past, why are ‘they’ still complaining about it today? I think this book is a good counter to this dismissal. (Yes, the conservative will just invent excuses to dismiss the book, too.) History is a current that affects us today. Excellent writers like Luckerson can shows us how history connects to today, as he does in Built from the Fire.
Institutional Racism on Display for All to See
Often with my conservative friends, they’ll dismiss structural, or institutional, racism as not existing. Luckerson shows through exhaustive research how institutional racism aided, abetted, and protected the white criminals. Often, those same white criminals were government officials or deputized by government officials. Whether the Tulsa or the Oklahoma or the Federal government, all protected white people and failed the black citizens. Luckerson has the evidence to show this, even using government documents to back it up. The very institutions of our nation worked against them in order to preserve the white supremacy from which it profited.
But it isn’t just governments that failed the black citizens. Insurance companies didn’t pay out on policies because the government claimed it was a riot. White ‘advisors’ sought to ‘help’ black people through purchases after their properties were destroyed. These vultures came in hoping to profit off of the destruction they likely participated in.
Hope
So far the review has focused on the negativity in the book. Maybe I’m focused on the wrong parts of the book. But I’m angry. I’m angry for the citizens of Greenwood; I’m angry for black Americans for whom racism isn’t a thing of the past; I’m angry for all marginalized groups as my nation falls back into its darkest impulses. But Built from the Fire is, I think, a hopeful book. Luckerson paints a lovely scene of a crowd outside the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Center on May 31, proclaimed Reconciliation Day, and their walk to John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, with its famous sculptures. This, and other acts of preservation, keep the lessons of that horrible time fresh for us in hopes of never repeating them. Luckerson talks about how the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce preserved the heart of the old business district. He shows how Regina Goodwin become an Oklahoma legislator. There are stories of hope.
Of course this isn’t a novel; so, it doesn’t have a happy ending. Luckerson writes about the protests around George Floyd, about Trump holding his first rally in Tulsa, and about Terrence Crutcher. Still, the Goodwins live and thrive in Greenwood. The Oklahoma Eagle celebrated a 100 year anniversary. Joe Biden acknowledged the devastation of urban renewal on Greenwood. Despite all that has happened, the Goodwins and black Americans continue to work to improve this country. To improve their lives. They have no choice, and yet they continue to do so within institutions and structures designed to specifically limit them. And they’re making progress. Small, maybe even microscopic progress, but progress nonetheless. That is hope.
Conclusion
Victor Luckerson’s Built from the Fire reminds us that the currents of history flow through contemporary society. Luckerson won’t let us forget what happened in Greenwood; he won’t let us forget how this nation and its institutions failed its citizens in their hour of need. He, and the residents of Greenwood, also won’t let us forget an era of America’s past that cannot be repeated. Highly recommended.
January 15, 2024
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.
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.
July 9, 2023
So, shout out to my friend, first of all, for finding the "Afro-Saxons" taunt about Fisk students. That is so mean and so funny. It's true it doesn't really scan, but whatever. My friend was a research assistant on this book for . . . a while . . . and so I got to hear a lot about the process of writing it. I was really looking forward to reading Built from the Fire for those reasons, and also because it's an interesting story. I'd read a bunch of Luckerson's journalism, too, and sometimes his newsletter.
The newsletter, I think, is not always his strongest work - imagine!! But if you, too, were sometimes underwhelmed by that, then you should still read Built from the Fire! It's very good.
This is a fat book, first of all - I didn't anticipate how big it was. And it's thoroughly sourced, too (philosophers could learn something, tbh). It covers a broad swathe of Greenwood's history. This is good - the Tulsa Race Massacre was murderous and otherwise destructive, but it was not, for many people, the end of the story, and rebuilding is harder to know about.
Because Luckerson covers such a broad swathe of Greenwood history, you also find out about other things. Sometimes this is a strength, though I think the Goodwin family gets more emphasis than the book warrants. They're all interesting people, but there are several chapters of anecdotes that go nowhere re: Greenwood and digressions about children who don't serve much of a role in the larger story. The book lost focus there, and this made the overall story harder to find, sometimes.
The final section tells you a lot about trying to get stuff done in the state legislature when you're in the minority party and is really fascinating and specific. And I think it's helpful to see just how many ideas people who are invested in their communities have about improving those communities. Those ideas get ignored or derided - but knowing there are people around who have specific, actionable ideas is really helpful, no matter where you live. The Greenwood story might not be your story. Sometimes you have to go looking for your story.
The newsletter, I think, is not always his strongest work - imagine!! But if you, too, were sometimes underwhelmed by that, then you should still read Built from the Fire! It's very good.
This is a fat book, first of all - I didn't anticipate how big it was. And it's thoroughly sourced, too (philosophers could learn something, tbh). It covers a broad swathe of Greenwood's history. This is good - the Tulsa Race Massacre was murderous and otherwise destructive, but it was not, for many people, the end of the story, and rebuilding is harder to know about.
Because Luckerson covers such a broad swathe of Greenwood history, you also find out about other things. Sometimes this is a strength, though I think the Goodwin family gets more emphasis than the book warrants. They're all interesting people, but there are several chapters of anecdotes that go nowhere re: Greenwood and digressions about children who don't serve much of a role in the larger story. The book lost focus there, and this made the overall story harder to find, sometimes.
The final section tells you a lot about trying to get stuff done in the state legislature when you're in the minority party and is really fascinating and specific. And I think it's helpful to see just how many ideas people who are invested in their communities have about improving those communities. Those ideas get ignored or derided - but knowing there are people around who have specific, actionable ideas is really helpful, no matter where you live. The Greenwood story might not be your story. Sometimes you have to go looking for your story.
March 5, 2024
Author Victor Luckerson has written an important book which tells the story of the terrible events in 1921 when the Greenwood business district of Tulsa Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street, was burned down by a white mob. The events, later described as a massacre, resulted in substantial loss of life in the Greenwood district and destroyed both businesses and households in the area.
In the early parts of the book, Luckerson provides stories of several black families that moved to Tulsa from many other areas, including the Deep South, and began to establish a lively and thriving way of life in the Greenwood section within the northern part of Tulsa. Luckerson begins the story in the years before Oklahoma became a state and describes how Tulsa became a boom town for oil and the city became a magnet for people of many backgrounds, including whites, blacks and native Americans.
One approach used by Luckerson is to introduce us to people who moved into Tulsa and became prominent in various areas of business and give us a sense of how they did it. For example, Loula Williams was a black, female entrepreneur who started a successful confectionary business and parlayed the money earned from that business into jumping into the new business of motion pictures. She established the Williams Dreamland theatre in 1914 as a successful business and was able to expand the building and have a first run of the movie Cleopatra in 1917, competing well with other theatres owned by white men to attract an audience in the Greenwood community. By telling the stories of these business leaders and their ties to the Greenwood area, Luckerson conveys a sense of exuberant business activity and growth driven by this community of black entrepreneurs.
In addition, he begins to lay out details of a parallel story, where there were uneasy dynamics between the white and black communities in Tulsa. For example, many of the people of Greenwood worked in the southern part of Tulsa for businesses owned by whites or had service roles working for affluent white families in southern Tulsa. We also hear about well-known visitors that come into Oklahoma and Tulsa as speakers including Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois and share their differing perspectives on how black Americans should interact in a society where so much of the power and wealth is controlled by the leadership of the white communities.
This time period was also dominated by world events such as the first World War, which the United States reluctantly entered in 1917. Several thousand black men from Oklahoma were sent off to war in Europe, but found they were treated better in countries like France than they had been in the United States. After the war, Greenwood had grown into a district comprising about 11 thousand people of color and featured buildings which included a hospital, many churches, libraries and restaurants, with a growing professional class that included doctors and lawyers.
But there were also growing tensions between the black and white communities of Tulsa. In late May, 1921, an incident took place where a young black man named Dick Rowland was accused of touching a white woman in the elevator of a multi-story business in a white section of Tulsa. Most people knew nothing about the incident until two of the Tulsa newspapers wrote up stories about the young man's arrest. The stories stoked existing tensions in Tulsa and rumors started circulating about lynching. Rowland was transferred to an office under protection of a local sheriff at a jail within a county courthouse. By early evening, hundreds of people had gathered around the courthouse. The sheriff asked them to disperse, but they didn't. A little while later, a group of black men came out of Greenwood and asked about the rumored lynching. A black deputy sheriff convinced them to go back to Greenwood, but the crowd around the courthouse continued to grow. The show of black force had stirred up the crowd and some men started looking for weapons. Not long after that, a shot rang out and this was later followed by many more. Later that night, armed factions were roaming the streets, with the white contingents vastly outnumbering the blacks. Many blacks had retreated to Greenwood, but encountered a situation with armed shooters in the neighborhoods and some fires being set in houses.
Law enforcement had lost control of the situation, but the police chief said they didn't need outside help. Eventually they called in the National Guard, but the guardsman who tried to prevent mobs from entering Greenwood were outnumbered.
By this time, what later became known as the Massacre had begun. The mobs set fire to large portions of the Greenwood district including businesses and residential buildings. Author Luckerson covers the destruction in a great amount of detail in about two chapters. Thousands of Greenwood residents were forced to flee, fight or face death in the first twelve to fifteen hours after the courthouse mob had gathered. Some early estimates were that hundreds of bodies were found in the aftermath and some were probably buried in mass graves.
The physical damage was better accounted for. Greenwood lost 1,256 houses to burning and others to looting. The entire business district was lost with estimates of around 150 businesses burned down. As author Luckerson concludes in this chapter, Greenwood lost its past and lost its future.
But Luckerson continued the narrative after this point and described how many residents made stellar efforts to rebuild Greenwood and get their future back. A continuing thread within the rest of the book is to tell the story of the family which took over a small Greenwood based newspaper known as the Oklahoma Eagle. It had originally started in 1922 to provide a successor to earlier black newpapers in Greenwood and was run by Theodore Baughman, who had worked for other papers. An up and coming Greenwood business leader, Ed Goodwin, offered to buy half of the paper, but Baughman refused based on Goodwin's reputation for running a numbers business. But Goodwin managed to get a front person to complete the purchase and fully took control of the paper in 1938 after Baughman died. Goodwin invested in the paper and upgraded its facilities, printing press and hired more journalists. Goodwin also was a founding member of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce and gathered a group of black business men and woman, with the goal of promoting the commercial, civic, industrial and educational interests of their community. The paper gave Goodwin and other black leaders a forum with which to point out areas where discrimination against people of color persisted.
Luckerson followed the story of the Eagle, the Goodwin family and Greenwood as the United States entered the second World War. The outlook for black workers began to look up when President Roosevelt issued an executive order outlawing discrimination by government agencies and defense contractors. For example, the Eagle wrote articles to push a local aircraft company, Douglas, to hire black workers to comply with the new executive order. This was an example where business leaders in Greenwood were able to use new approaches to help their community members be able to compete more fairly for jobs during the wartime.
The book continued to follow the saga of Greenwood and its struggles in the decades to follow. The narrative continued all the way up to 2021 and 2022, giving readers a sense of where Greenwood and its community were able to progress in some ways, but still faced opposition to other initiatives. Readers were given enough information to get a sense of the degree to which Greenwood recovered from the massacre of 1921 one hundred years before, but how many other obstacles still remained to prevent a more complete recovery for Greenwood and the members and descendants of its families.
In this sense, Luckerson offers a valuable exposure of the events in North Tulsa of 1921 and a profound example of how a community can be destroyed by racist practices and then be held back for years and even generations to come. At the same time, we learn about many members of this community who persevered and were able to re-build some aspects of the community. For example, a new version of Booker T. Washington High School was built in 1951 and has become a magnet school in the city of Tulsa during the years since. This is a tragic story about Greenwood, but one which continued to play out as the book drew to a close.
In the early parts of the book, Luckerson provides stories of several black families that moved to Tulsa from many other areas, including the Deep South, and began to establish a lively and thriving way of life in the Greenwood section within the northern part of Tulsa. Luckerson begins the story in the years before Oklahoma became a state and describes how Tulsa became a boom town for oil and the city became a magnet for people of many backgrounds, including whites, blacks and native Americans.
One approach used by Luckerson is to introduce us to people who moved into Tulsa and became prominent in various areas of business and give us a sense of how they did it. For example, Loula Williams was a black, female entrepreneur who started a successful confectionary business and parlayed the money earned from that business into jumping into the new business of motion pictures. She established the Williams Dreamland theatre in 1914 as a successful business and was able to expand the building and have a first run of the movie Cleopatra in 1917, competing well with other theatres owned by white men to attract an audience in the Greenwood community. By telling the stories of these business leaders and their ties to the Greenwood area, Luckerson conveys a sense of exuberant business activity and growth driven by this community of black entrepreneurs.
In addition, he begins to lay out details of a parallel story, where there were uneasy dynamics between the white and black communities in Tulsa. For example, many of the people of Greenwood worked in the southern part of Tulsa for businesses owned by whites or had service roles working for affluent white families in southern Tulsa. We also hear about well-known visitors that come into Oklahoma and Tulsa as speakers including Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois and share their differing perspectives on how black Americans should interact in a society where so much of the power and wealth is controlled by the leadership of the white communities.
This time period was also dominated by world events such as the first World War, which the United States reluctantly entered in 1917. Several thousand black men from Oklahoma were sent off to war in Europe, but found they were treated better in countries like France than they had been in the United States. After the war, Greenwood had grown into a district comprising about 11 thousand people of color and featured buildings which included a hospital, many churches, libraries and restaurants, with a growing professional class that included doctors and lawyers.
But there were also growing tensions between the black and white communities of Tulsa. In late May, 1921, an incident took place where a young black man named Dick Rowland was accused of touching a white woman in the elevator of a multi-story business in a white section of Tulsa. Most people knew nothing about the incident until two of the Tulsa newspapers wrote up stories about the young man's arrest. The stories stoked existing tensions in Tulsa and rumors started circulating about lynching. Rowland was transferred to an office under protection of a local sheriff at a jail within a county courthouse. By early evening, hundreds of people had gathered around the courthouse. The sheriff asked them to disperse, but they didn't. A little while later, a group of black men came out of Greenwood and asked about the rumored lynching. A black deputy sheriff convinced them to go back to Greenwood, but the crowd around the courthouse continued to grow. The show of black force had stirred up the crowd and some men started looking for weapons. Not long after that, a shot rang out and this was later followed by many more. Later that night, armed factions were roaming the streets, with the white contingents vastly outnumbering the blacks. Many blacks had retreated to Greenwood, but encountered a situation with armed shooters in the neighborhoods and some fires being set in houses.
Law enforcement had lost control of the situation, but the police chief said they didn't need outside help. Eventually they called in the National Guard, but the guardsman who tried to prevent mobs from entering Greenwood were outnumbered.
By this time, what later became known as the Massacre had begun. The mobs set fire to large portions of the Greenwood district including businesses and residential buildings. Author Luckerson covers the destruction in a great amount of detail in about two chapters. Thousands of Greenwood residents were forced to flee, fight or face death in the first twelve to fifteen hours after the courthouse mob had gathered. Some early estimates were that hundreds of bodies were found in the aftermath and some were probably buried in mass graves.
The physical damage was better accounted for. Greenwood lost 1,256 houses to burning and others to looting. The entire business district was lost with estimates of around 150 businesses burned down. As author Luckerson concludes in this chapter, Greenwood lost its past and lost its future.
But Luckerson continued the narrative after this point and described how many residents made stellar efforts to rebuild Greenwood and get their future back. A continuing thread within the rest of the book is to tell the story of the family which took over a small Greenwood based newspaper known as the Oklahoma Eagle. It had originally started in 1922 to provide a successor to earlier black newpapers in Greenwood and was run by Theodore Baughman, who had worked for other papers. An up and coming Greenwood business leader, Ed Goodwin, offered to buy half of the paper, but Baughman refused based on Goodwin's reputation for running a numbers business. But Goodwin managed to get a front person to complete the purchase and fully took control of the paper in 1938 after Baughman died. Goodwin invested in the paper and upgraded its facilities, printing press and hired more journalists. Goodwin also was a founding member of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce and gathered a group of black business men and woman, with the goal of promoting the commercial, civic, industrial and educational interests of their community. The paper gave Goodwin and other black leaders a forum with which to point out areas where discrimination against people of color persisted.
Luckerson followed the story of the Eagle, the Goodwin family and Greenwood as the United States entered the second World War. The outlook for black workers began to look up when President Roosevelt issued an executive order outlawing discrimination by government agencies and defense contractors. For example, the Eagle wrote articles to push a local aircraft company, Douglas, to hire black workers to comply with the new executive order. This was an example where business leaders in Greenwood were able to use new approaches to help their community members be able to compete more fairly for jobs during the wartime.
The book continued to follow the saga of Greenwood and its struggles in the decades to follow. The narrative continued all the way up to 2021 and 2022, giving readers a sense of where Greenwood and its community were able to progress in some ways, but still faced opposition to other initiatives. Readers were given enough information to get a sense of the degree to which Greenwood recovered from the massacre of 1921 one hundred years before, but how many other obstacles still remained to prevent a more complete recovery for Greenwood and the members and descendants of its families.
In this sense, Luckerson offers a valuable exposure of the events in North Tulsa of 1921 and a profound example of how a community can be destroyed by racist practices and then be held back for years and even generations to come. At the same time, we learn about many members of this community who persevered and were able to re-build some aspects of the community. For example, a new version of Booker T. Washington High School was built in 1951 and has become a magnet school in the city of Tulsa during the years since. This is a tragic story about Greenwood, but one which continued to play out as the book drew to a close.
July 13, 2023
Luckerson's book about Tulsa's Greenwood District from its inception to the present day is most readable. The district, dubbed Black Wall Street, was a model of Black entrepreneurial success, an enclave of professional people, ordinary strivers, and the maids and handyman who worked in the houses of prosperous white Tulsans Luckerson vividly recreates the vibrant African-American community and the savage murderous rampage abetted by prominent white citizens that errupted on May 31, 1921 and left uncounted Black men, women, children, and infants dead, or traumatized, and often homeless. Whites dropped bombs into Greenwood, burned, and looted homes, then blamed Black folks, successfully burying the story of the massacre for decades, refusing to pay out insurance policies, and blocking efforts to aid and rebuild the community. Luckerson writes of perpetual Black resilience and tragedy and hardship in the face of racism, community destroying urban renewal, white flight, and police brutality. The story of Greenwood is not unlike the story of other Black communities across America, but what makes Greenwood's story special is the resilience of its local Black paper, The Oklahoma Eagle, which is still published by the Goodwin family whose members survived the massacre. Today, Oklahoma State Representative, Regina Goodwin, is continuing to fight for reparations and against those who would deny Black History. What makes Luckerson's book special is his choice to tell Greenwood's story through the lives of its people from leaders like the Goodwins to ordinary people like beautician Mabel Bonner Little. This book was a long but very good read.
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