Ezra's Bookshelf

The Burning

by Tim Madigan · 201 pages · ~3.5 hrs

HistoryRace & Identity

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Tim Madigan reconstructs the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when white mobs destroyed the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood—'Black Wall Street'—killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless. The book begins by establishing what Greenwood was: a thriving community of Black-owned businesses, professionals, and families who had built prosperity despite pervasive racism. Madigan traces the immediate trigger—a questionable assault allegation—and the white Tulsa institutions that enabled or participated in the violence: the police, the National Guard, the newspapers. The massacre itself is rendered in horrifying detail: coordinated attacks, aerial bombardment, systematic looting and burning. But the book's greatest revelation is what followed: the official coverup that erased the massacre from history books for decades, the legal maneuvers that stripped survivors of recourse, and the long struggle to recover memory. Madigan shows how Tulsa's amnesia was deliberate, serving interests that benefited from silence. The book is both historical account and argument about why historical memory matters for present justice.

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