victor luckerson is a journalist and author based in tulsa who works to bring neglected history to. the book he's discussing today built from thestory of tulsa's greenwood ameri because black wall street was the new york times editor's choice victor is a former staff writer at the ringer and atime magazine. he was nominated for ais reporting in time on 1923rosewood massacre. he also manages an email about underexplored aspects of black called run itback. please give a warm savannah. victor lucas

thank you all so much for being. this is a really packed house then this is the biggest crowd artists that i talked to jared actually about the book. so thank you all so much for thank you to this event. a book for hosting me. at the sheri jacobson and joe and carol young. again thank you. we have to have a last in downtown savannah, which is really fun with sponsors. really great time here. and you know, for me actually thisst book that i've written and my first time actually speaking at a book festival actually came to the savannah book festival, a guest last year sitting in the pews on that side of the audience. an's kind of an amazing experience to be seeing how big this place is from this vantage. you know, i'm going to be here talking a little bit about the everybody knows about the story yet, but hopefully after thi this over the last 100 years. and i'm going to begin with a really short excerpt from, the book, it's actually the first paragraph of the first chapter. you know, i remember these words coming to me actually when i first began the actual writing process of the book and early 2021. and so this is actually one of

the first parts of the book that als hen i began the process and this is how the book they called it the eden of the west. oo land as the creek nation indian territory and eventually oklahoma, they wrote a fertile soil that could grow anding shoulder high, acres of wheat and melons ready to andr ripeness. they described a righteous realm have chances with the white man or those who remasouth, where slaves ought to be killed at any time. most important to henry and kali goodwin they spoke of good schools for colored children, places where the seeds of prosperity could be sown, and the one terrain that cannot be burned, stolen or erased by interloper. the terrain of the mine. these are the opening words in my book on the history of greenwood built from theire, and i've been reflecting on them a lot as i've traveled around the the last six months. today i like to take a j terrain of the mine. the question of movements tes and rage will begin the pleasure of school boards and

currently battling over the future of american education in the place where the memory of nw of the national consciousness. thedo a little of imagining today, and i've been a i ask you to imagine something. just close your eyes a little bit. go there with me if you can. so i want you to think about me in 21 years old. just imagine where you were in your life when you were that age and think about your favorite hangout ts a bar, a restaurant your best friend's maybe even the library you guys shot from across the country to go to a very possibly a fairer place in your 21 years old with the library know? i don'tever it was, it was probably something like it on greenwood avenue in tulsa, oklahoma, in the early 1900s, oklahomaplace where black people thought they could have a fresh as jim crow party sees the deep south with, an ever tightening grip. oklahoma promised better schools, bountiful crops and ly quality. it was like the bright sunshine of the morning of may. iter reading about life at west became like oklahoma's brightest star of all imagine living in a place where

most of the teachers there high school had master's degrees. that was true. greenwood imagine living in a place where black people own their land than renting it, that was true. greenwood imagine living in a place where wealth was not the defining metric of success, but community involved. that was that was true in greenwood. if we were in the old greenwood right now, i'd be tech talking to you now at trinity united methodist church at mount zion baptist church, which is built in the heart of with 70,000 bricks and a countless number of prayers r talk. we did a dinner at susie, those cafe 106 north gri avenue, where my mother chicken was neighbor delicacy. once the meal was done, we catch vaudeville, show the dreamland ed around the block every and just swing into a dim like the zulu lounge orand a substance called chuck beer looked like juice. it tasted like a good friday night. would you bet we'd meet women? lulu williams, the famous amusement dreamland theater and a leopard print coat to match owner

of the largest back hotel in the uniteds. little beautician who was so good with her hair. save. the receding hairlines and j.h. help though tulsa's first black hospital. what a community. what a community contributed to you. goodwin once wrote can only be measured in terms of what you back that community by greenwood filled with doctors, attorneys, writers hoteliers owners here the terrain of the meadow, as greenwood championed black ce black entrepreneurship, black strength. mary parrish, a local typing teacher, was one of the first people to call it the -- but more than riches was you, parrish greenwood was,ful cooperation, observed ourbut this terrain, the agreement it cultivated, it wa contested neighborhood success starts on the in the minds of many white oklahoma, at its founding a declared that intellect were at odds with the white agenda. as a rule, -- are failures as lawyers, doctors and other professions. william murray, a future

governor, governor of oklahoma, said of the state's constituti is an entirely false notion that the -- can man. not long after murraysegregate train cars booths in tulsa, interracial baseball games were banned. harper hateful rhetoric and dehumanizing laws inevitably and so it was in these unitedlynchings became regular occurrence across the deep south anddaoklahoma race riots spread across the country known the red summer. the violence seem each passing year and the nearby town of wagner, when a black woman was lynched, hanged on main street. the local white press declared that the lynching gave the community a peaceful and appearance. now we're going to imagine. i want you to imagine they were back on greenwoodit's may 31st, 1921. the streets are once again torn with people, but the energy is en fear, anxiety, anger.

a black shoeshine boy named -- roland has been falsely accused of attpt a woman. a salacious, salacious headlineer reads nab -- for girl in and, in white tulsa has seen the s jail house where it is group of white men and women even are headed to the jail to rape him from hihim on the streets of. men are gathering weapons and planning a march to the courthouse where. they will protect the boy and face down anyway. no, the cost. or? do you go? of about 75 armed black menese men, world war one veterans who have country abroad and returned new notions of black equal jail the black veterans demanded the release of rolling, but the police refused. soon a black soldier and a white man scuffled over a gun. then went off and all hell broke loose during the night black and white men shot at each other through the streets of downtown tulsa. the violence was brutal. one black man was jacked behind a with rope around his neck.

another was shot, ran out of a downtown alley, then surrounded by a mob brandishing knives. members of the white mob broke into a hardware store and attempted to seize a armory. many of them are deputized by epartment. a white man named laura buck recalled going on theld by an officer, quote, get a gun and gettry to get a --. the black man who escaped the initial shootout retreated to greenwood to defend theirthe mob has something worse planned. at morning, as many as 5000 white oklahomans invaded the greenwood kerosene and matches. fires were set systematically. a team of white, some of them deputized by police, would enter, chosen home and blow the lock up the doo they smashed the inside. wrenching open drawers, teari drapes. after gathering the bedding items into the center of a room, the men doused objects insethen a ladder match. each the twilight tone its own several hours

white also laid siege to greenwood, destroying more than 1200 homes, razing hundreds businesses and killing as many as 300 people. the most harrowing statistic there were six stillborn babies lost in theinvasion, the tulsa race known within the worst racial acts of terror in the history, the states. now, if you're sitting with mein this room today, there's chance chances are high. you've already heard about the broad strokes of this story. years have been featured in television li country documentaries. it's been president biden came tulsa 19 2021 and acknowledged the race massacre. fact that event is no longer completely buried is r a nation that often refuses understand itself and its i'm here to argue, the greenwood story is much than those 36 hours of destruction. black life cannot be defined by the mob. and so i hope that by the time we finish talkingthink of greenwood, you won't think of angry white men shotguns. you think of the people who call

this place home and rebuild ei thives a cataclysm. my mind always goes back to a meeting that took place about two weeks after the massacre. greenlan zone. all the buildings have been reduced. trees of their foliage. one of the few structures le was baptist church, where neighbor leaders held an emergency meeting. j.w., who was the principal of the elementary school. some up gree he got up to speak. you said, i'm going to hold what lost. despite the odds, greenwood rebuilt. a barber took a chair out to the burned out district as the rubble still smoldered and offered to cut hair. dr makeshift amphitheater showing films in an open nights. attorney b.s. franklinen while working a tent working out of a tent. he set up amidst the desthe on with a lone wooden desk. a few salvaged logbooks and a single typewriter. within weeks of the the neighborhood with canvas. by christmas, those tend to be replaced by hundreds ofreconstruct buildings. by 1925, greenwood was hotels, storefronts

and the proud dreamland dubois greenwood in 1926, hethere for the near but impudent and noisy. itself. greenwood enjoyed a second etch from the 1930s to the 1950s. more than 400 business district. musicians from count basie, the b.b. king's, etta james alperformed back on venues in tulsa steak and frog legs, where in skirt and mini bermuda shorts every friday night. residents proudlyd, yes, the -- street greenway story was a black america story. let me give you an exampleis book that i've actually, for one family in particular the goodwin family, they tolson, 14. they survived the race massacre.as a senior high school at the time of the race massacre. t this university. he goes by the tulsa to greenwood to become an entrepreneur. ou owned a shoeshine shop in greenwood.ought, a black newspaper, the eagle. but i also found out that he was re might be underwrote of greenwood, which is kind of surprising to me. and the greenwood there's a game called the numbers that was very popular and anybody here

familiar with the numbers or the policy anyhow play the number you can admit you play the numbers. numbers was a sort of by the lottery back in thebasically there would be one between 76 are the numbers if between that range, you would get a payout. and so ed goodwin kind of policy king of greenwood, this gambling who kind of ran gambling in greenwood. he was alive and bootlegging and all that kind of so know when i was doing my research, i always thought that my mom wea was finding out. and so one day i called my mom and i civil rights hero and really upstanding. he also was involved in and this is kind of crazy, don't you think? and then my mom said did same thing right? and so that was a big shock for me. and we were known to my son to i didn't know that. but it was actually a really good lesson because it really illustraespecially black folks in that era, there was direct path to no there is the red carpet. you had to get there how you get think everybody maybe taken to your family's path, you might find a surprise like i did. right. that's terrific. these guys are. so greenwood's ability to come

roaring back, destruction, it not escape the gears of so-called progress at century on. in the 1960s a slippery new term calleremedies wormed its way into government lexicon. the idea was tourban communities and revive better living for residents. but in reality neighborhoods like greenwood labeled as blighted and the people living there, were forced to move miles away, to make room for serving whiter, wealthier residents. goodwin's family was forced to leave their home on riavenue, while the newspaper office demolished to make room for an interstate by 1975, only been, one of the most successful black business districts in all of the united reign of the mind and the physical terrain are deeply intertwined with without preserving the physical spaces that honor the past. it's easy for the to slip out of livingt happened in greenwood. for decades, thed every anniversary of the massacre in the 1970s, writing s as tried to uncover the truth about the event. death children what had happened to them. havi wealth, then they didn't want to pass on trauma as

an inheritance. now we're going to imagine one more time. i want to imagine once again the young greenwood avenue. it's ma a small group of about 25 peopleacknowledge the 97th anniversary of the race perished. the roar of an interstate highway looming any attempt at quiet reflection. and all around the vigil hundreds of people are streaming past us toward the sports stadium that recently built on this very block. the tulsa drillers are putting the san antonio missions and minor funny if it weren't soday in 2018, with my first day stepping foot on greenwood avenue. i was a young journalist working in l.a. missemy editors. i mean, it's also trying ask about the famed black wall reet and over me, how i enjoyed this story initially. i remember that i was having lunch with a friend when lived in atlanta, working as a business journalisttarted talking about the film the slave. you may have seen the at. so my friend, about my age, we're both by 27, 28 years old. my friend was saying he hadn't

seen the movie. he he was tired of seeing black folks only to pick the historical undergoing trauma. you know, you think about most of the black narratives that get fed through hollywood movies, or even when you learn about a history books often as being whipped as slaves before the civil war,dal's in the civil rights movement, and we don't really get outside of thoseactually, have you ever heard of black wall street? that's a story about us successfard of black wall street. this is before watchmen, before presiden biden visited greenwood, you know, before all of this national attention it happened. and so f me, the motivation was to be able to tell this about black success ofsolidarity to my friend and others like him. that was ry to convince my editors to let me out. an article about black wallhave me go to the neighborhood on that day 2018, when baseball game, seeing how much the neighborhood legacy been diminished depressed me, ange even. but it also gave me the motivation to want to go writing one article about a year later i quit my pegged to my life, made black country music playlist tulsa. that was the old town road job.

road wrote that song. that was the year i moved to tulsa and the year i'm leavtulsa the obvious job in the country. album sales like both full circle moment so but you know i knew that the only way to really tell greenwood story and become part of it in a way. when i moved to greenwood, i soon learned that it was a place of contradictions, part hallowed destination, part black business d, playground, walk theyou would fi plaques placed on the sidewalk. what was destroyed? susie bell café destroyed in 1921. never plaques about luxury apartments and why don't do with greenwood's heritage? instead of having theholiday inn, and yet the people of greenwood continue to depend to defend and honor the going the newspaper, the oklahomale still has now some greenwood avenue, the last piece of property in the area owned son an 83 year old attorney has been chargeding a paper for more than 40 years and his in the oklahoma legislature and represents the greenwood today, there

are two known living s massacre, lesley benefit randle and fletcher both 109 years old. they are spry, strong and they'll smile warmly when you say, hey miss flet randle, i'm going to spend a lot of time with both these. and it rea how how whether they are you know, when i first approached them, i was porcelain gloves, like, you know, i hope don't break. i'm not going to break. i'm here. i'm on alert, you know. so it's been really a pleasure to get to know those folks. but their time on this earth like all of ours, is they're living survivor. he's been ellis passed away last age of 102. the survivors are part of a n lawsuit seeking justice. justice on behalf of the entirecommunity. several massacre descendants were originally of the lawsuit as well, recently ruled the notice this could be part of the these survivors pass away, the justice goes with them. and tulsa and oklahamerica, the arbiters of so-called eyeing the hourglass and their

understanding of backwards and untreated wound, not h festers and on payday is not wiped from books, it accrues interest. greenwood's ancestors, the ones who witness its creation and cataclysms, must all. yet their soul still stir in the voices of theirtheir growing number of allies around nation. night is my last night. there's going to be a generation after me. me. as long as folks are being born, we to make sfight and why. we've got to present one the story of greenwood has been quiet for far too long. finally, people ar listening. you're now carriage. this story washistory, american history. the terrain of the mind is undertack. our country today. but the denizens of greenwood couldople with such courage. the least we can do itcies. thank you all so much. you.

in the q ask to come up. all right. wely were transported, weren't we, in our imaginations. and itesentation. if you have questions. now is the time and the microphone is here and i'm sure mr. lucas will enjoy answering yourokay. i'll be the person brave souls. victor. hello. hi. margaret coker, lydia and savannah. but i. i'm a military brat. we to oklahoma. when i started high s you had to one semester of oklahoma history history. and we did not learn aood in my oklahoma class 30 years ago. coul how the state as are now teaching. oklahoma is about this. yes. yeah thank you. the question was

students in oklahoma learn about the race massacre. people all ages from greenwood white black or black. and so many of them have told me that they never learned about school, let alone any of us who grew up outside of oklahoma. there'sl things done to make that more prevalent. the race massacre as part of the oklahoma state standards. now, however. so it varies from teacher to teacher. and superintendent named ryan walters, who is very kind of on adetheory. at one point a while ago, he was questioned about and had a quote along the lines of, well, it wasn't really about race. where though technically the state ispressure, teachers feel, to not teach theistory. and i can also say, actually that i spoke to some at oklahoma state last fall read my book in the class. so a lot of those who are from oklahoma and they had not learned abocurrent, you know 18, 19 year olds are not getting this history ely. i was at ago. how did the area become this sort of upscale, artsy, you know, very, very

thank you. the question. so, as i mentioned in my initely a space that's transformed a lot. so a lot oft are don't really serve the shop or bring the community. there's kind of two steps tohe first with urban renewal. so the vast majority, the neighborhood was actually 1970s doing urban i know process and you know in some would have the black land be replaced by like a thing and greenwood going actually made empty. so they actually were more than 200 acres of land in green where they were just empty 30 or 40 years. and and 2010 is when they decided to build a baseball in the neighborhood. baseball essentially spurred a lot of really rapid gentrification. and so if now there are two or there is open built after the race massacre that still have some black owned busi them. and most of the neighborhood is baseball stadium holiday inn luxury apartments. i would say probably the vast majo not serve the history of greenwood or the black folks who are from there. becausebut my question, what do you book? what is the message that you're

delivering delivering. in terms o message? i would really encourage folks when they read bookit to think about the parallels to wherever you're from, no matter what of aspect greenwood you're looking at, it actually reflects of of all of bl i said so there are lots black communitiesss districts in the jim crow era, for example,of night around 1921 hit more than 50 cities across states. urban renewal decimated black communities. matter you're from the interstate highway that goes through the city and probably cut througbl neighborhood back in the day. and so i really think more about thinking about how these things greenwood, what's going on in yourand tell story of rings. one of my favorite things about book is that although it is a history and i'm learning a lot about redlining gentrification there are these really personal narratives that you were able to get from family members. i just think everyone would like you for the question.

so i mentioned lulu, angela earlier, my was one of the most interesting people to research the lou williams owned the dreamland theater and i that my first sort of point to her photograph of lula, her husband john, and their son w.d. e car, which is kind of like the royce of like the model tierra so they're this really fancy car and they're wondering what avenue. but lou is in the passenger seat is in the driver's seat. and i made a lot of assumptions the relationship, to be honest wibut my family were quickly disrupted by as of my research for the book, i did a lot of so when i looked at the property records of the dreaml found the sign affidavit by lula. and lula hadd put out this affidavit that said, i, lula. i owned the seats. i owned all of this down. was nothing. yeah. and they they essentially they separated their assets and lula was really the owner of that property. and everything inside of it. and so that really compelled me to really transform how portraying her in the story. and so when yoyou get to learn a lot about luis independence. however, what's really sadstory is

the fact that lula's family is one of the hardest hit by the racedreamland itself was destroyed and she also owned a confectionery that was destroyed destroyed. and afterwards, the dreamland was rebuilt. but lula never fully recovered. she had a lot of mental and physical that are prettyns with post-traumatic stress disorder. and she actually passed away in massacre. and so through her story y the of greenwood, but also the tragedy wh unfolded ining about significance of the oklahoma together through all those years of those changes and the fact that it's still operating? oh, yeah. yes. so on same trip that i went to the first time with the baseball game, i also got a chance to go to the oakland eagle office. so if you're if you're going to imagine one more time, if you're in greenwood and you' where the interstate is right to your right. out garage with the oklahoma eagle name on top of the time i went to go visit the eagle office because there's an auto garage. there's one side of the building has like the big like engines for cars basically.

and so i went to that and just i trying to call jim goodwin, who was a paper. and i kept like i was like, i'm here. he was like, you know, you'reu're late. i'm like, i'm here. i think right there is an anomaly just on and so he finally in, he's like you're late. i'm i'm was actually really generous with his time and his jimmy really helped me understand how important the it neighborhood. the oakland itself actually started in 1922, right the race massacre and the goodwin family pand i've owned it ever since. and for me as a archive vital because you really get a good of the sort of big picture civil rights that stuff. but also just like day to day life. so y eagle about like the sit ins going onhe paper you'd have column called scoop on the scoop, which is afe jean, wrote every week. and for me, it w that high stakes battle is often a pawn to convey with. but i think to be able to show that day to day rhythm, heartbeat of are you working another book at th time?

no. right now i'm trying to just on the time tell the story of greenwood to a lot more folks. the question i have, i have i yet. i do have ambitions to do and more books. but i think for now just the story of greenwood around the country is the goal. so cover what happened right after. question. so the rice massacre was covered in the white press in tulsa. however, there's certain unsurprisingly, a lot of mischaracterization happened. for example, let's called a race riot the time which sort of portrayed thin even handed battle between blacks and whites. and actually, there was actually a columntulsa tribune. so that's the newspaper that wrote the first article that kind ofthree days after the race massacre, they wrote a c place called -- town should never be rebuilt. and so that was where the te press they were covering what was happening, but they were doing in a really skewed manner that greenlee, responsible for its own dest enjoy being an artist in residencetulsa? oh, yes, i'm also an artist in tulsa. that's been a really good opportunity and t actually shared

a lot of my research documents with t my research, actually. i able to get a list of all of the lawsuits that race massacre victims filed in the 1920s. at the time, more than 200 property owners filed lawsuits against city of tulsa andrestitution. it's kind of funny. i was able to getstuff because it's kind of one of those thing in my here try to do research. we really been involved what can get is a kind of based on who you know. and so theseuments bn sitting in the one, they really analyze them before, but they're sa county courthouse and. all i had to really do, what i had to do would name kizzy. and so when i met kizzy, keith was able to give all these docu cd-rom. i didn't have a city on fire player, then upload documents. but i was able to, after a lot work, i was able to get the documents and i've shared those with l at, the university tulsa, and so they're actually like taking those losses and diving deeper. why that happened and why i think it justice when they is. we much. thank