In the early morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob marched across the train tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and into its predominantly Black Greenwood district-a thriving, affluent neighborhood known as America's Black Wall Street. They brought with them machine guns gasoline, and explosives. In a few short hours, they'd razed thirty-five swuare blocks to the ground, leaving hundreds dead. The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. What exactly happened that day? How did it come to pass? And why are the events unknown to so many today?
 
It is these questions that award-winning author Brandy Colbert seeks to answer in this searing nonfictionaccount of the Tulsa Race Massacrew. In examining the tension that was brought to a boil by many factors- white resentment of Black economic and political advancement, the enfranchisement of resurgent white supremacist oranizations, the tone and perspetive of the media, and more- a portrait is drawn of an event singular in its devastation, but not in its kind. IT is emblematic of the sort of attacks on Black Americans' lives and liberties taking place in many cities and towns across the country in the early twentieth century. And it is part of a legacy of white supremacist violence that can be traced fro our country's earliest days through Reconstruction, the civil rights in the mid-twentieth century, and the fight for justice and accountability Black Americans still face today.
 
The evets of June 1, 1921, have long failed to fit into the story we like to t3ell ourselves about our own history in America. This book, in turn ambitious and intimate, explores the ways in which the story of Tulsa Race Massacre is the story of America- and, by showing us who we are points a way forward.