the

the title of my book is most america notes from a wounded place so this essay states my thesis. it is a contrast national narrative. this is the land that gave birth to the premier accolades. somone of the celebrated novelis and its deadliest types of race riots within a few dozen years and miles of each other.

the first law enacted by the legislature. so we have more incorporated towns than any state in the nation. it's damn anywhere in the continent with added irony that an oklahoma most of us don't live on the reservation in the land of the red peopl dead peops what oklahoma means.

one of the first things that is most important to me to express is the quintessential as a profoundly american place by history, its culture and all the forces that have gone into creating a state so that is the essay and when there is another that creates the subtitle that speaks to the wound, the encroachment on the native land.

this was true from all over so if you've got oklahoma we are situated in the physical map. native tribes if you look where the original homelands were they are spread all over the continental sou so that is one f the ways than oklahoma became the promised land for a member who came here. that migration and encroachment from the native point of view of settlers that happened all across the continent had been here for the land runs and

people from the dominant cultu culture. the overall narrative is concentrated and have the with such a rapid pace in the latter part of the century. oklahoma has been a state since 1901907 like one of the 46 stats so much further west before we did. so those are parts of the ways. it's becoming together of native

american and anglo-american ange that created a racial cauldron in the early part of the 20th century particularly with that .-full-stop race riot that many cough and race massacre. it's the wealthy well-to-do black community of tulsa on the nintnight of may 31 and june 11. they have been in florida, arkansas and other places in that time but nothing to the complete destruction of a very wealthy well-to-do community of

successful and prosperous african-american people. it's disappeared at the national narrative altogether. we don't want to think about it except the broad outline genocide of native people were ethnic cleansing that happened.

we were the red states on the left and the socialist candidates for president in the early part of the 20th century received more votes than oklahoma than any other state it was a strong union state. now we are one of the most red states on the right and this happened within a century and a reflective of elements having to do with the larger culture. it's very religious, still predominantly white like other areas, very conservative and it reflects the national narrative

and the natural culture so we have these natural disasters, we have the tornadoes they are infamous for and there've been several devastations and more that people know about. when that happens and there is an f5 tornado and everything is laid flat and people are suffering than it is a stall of the divisions also again the way americans do suite of the oklahoma city bombing and the federal building in 2005 which in some ways be staged 9/11 and how people responded after the bombing. some people ask why do you want to go there and i'm very all of

this what is important for us? >> why he open up that wound and it's because it cannot be healed unless we do that and so it will continue to erupt every decade, every few years until we come to oh i enough what the nature of e history is. as we interviewed local historians and civic leaders you can watch any of the interviews online by going to booktv.org and selecting the city's tour

from a drop down or visit c-span.org and you can follow on twitter for behind the scenes videos. good evening everyone. thank you for coming out on this snowy evening. i am a bookseller here at politics and prose and on behalf of the owners lisa muscatine and the rest of the staff, welcome to tonight's event. before we get started can i ask you to silence your