Maligue Buds has all the knowledge you want.
Miligue Buds has.
All the knowledge you needlig But yeah, they have all the books.
That the whole wild world one of bread Maligue Books.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's bookshef bringing a world together with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshew. Whoo. Now I'm out here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I just went on a spiritual and mental journey, an historical journey. Do we call this black Lid Weekend? Around twenty five black owned bookstores around America joined together in unity to host the Black Bookstore Collective,
and we called it the Black Lit Weekend. From the East coast to the West coast, from the North coast of America to the South coast of America all joined up here at Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Tusa what we call the Black Wall Street Massacre took place in nineteen twenty one.
It's nicknamed Black Wall Street because of the progressive and economic elevation of black people who were former slaves migrated to Tulsa, Oklahoma to build a community, and ultimately their desire was to have their own state and none of that came to pass, but the prosperity and of progressing and the overwhelming businesses took place here. And in nineteen twenty one a race mascaret where they massacred black people. We're thirty six black people were murdered, eight hundred injured,
over a thousand homes and businesses destroyed. There was no monetary compensation, There was no white people that was charged with murder or any type of crime. This was a massacre, a race massacre, and it just didn't happen in Tosa. There's many times all across America where these types of things that massacres have happened. But we hear the Black Lit Weekend that we're calling it, where the Black Bookstore Collective.
It's around one hundred of us and we meet periodically monthly, and we discussed things around books, and twenty five of us came out to Tosa the network to talk about books, to talk about organizing and talk about events, to talk about anything that could elevate and enhance our business and what we can do collected together. We've had some publishers peen when Random House came out, Harbor Collins came out, and we just had a festive weekend which started with
dinner and meet and greet. Then the next day we got together and went on a tour where we went to where we went to Tosa, Oklahoma, where the massacre took place.
We went to.
Stampede Hill where was the last grand stand to prevent the burning and the murder of all of these innocent black people, where these white mob in town colluded together, conspired together, coordinated together and took kerosene, made malotar cocktails with kerosene, got into airplanes and bombed this black town they called in Tuwsa, Oklahoma, around around the street called Greenwood. They bombed all these black businesses, They bombed these black
churches and hotels, They bombed the houses from airplanes. It's the first time in America that bombs that were filled. There was malotar cocktails filled with kerosene, was thrown out of airplanes and bombed onto people Black people. This that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the first time that that bombs was dropped on America and it was dropped on black people. And this was a hidden history. This was a history that even Malcolm Max didn't know.
Most Black people didn't know. Most people didn't know unless you was from Toaso. They hit this, they hit this massacre, this twenty nineteen twenty one race massacre. They hit this from the masses of black people, white people, and everybody else. And it's just recently want to bite. President Biden came down here the one hundredth in nineteen twenty one. That was the one hundredth anniversary of the Tosa Race Mosca
at night from nineteen twenty one. In twenty twenty one, they had a commemorated a celebration and President Biden came down here. A lot of people didn't know that this took place, so but I'm here on the ground witness in first hand. It was a very emotional part of our journey and our tour out here. And I'm just like you know, I was a woman. I went, We
went to the museum, we walked around. First of all, we saw, you know, the areas that were bombed, and we saw and we found out, which I didn't know during Black White Street, that they rebuilt, rebuilt after this, and they had to pay twice the amount for the building materials they tried. They burnt up the at least, I mean their land that were called the deeds of their property. And then when they had to show them evidence that they own the deed, then they strict the
mineral rights. Because there was oil in Tasa, Oklahoma, and black people and Indians had land with a lot of oil. I believe Oklahoma is the richest nation in America with oil and then outside of Alaska, Okay. So then what happened was they gave them land deeds without the mineral rights. This is the kind of things that have taken place in America that we can never forget. Never forget why because if you forget, you're do them to repeat history,
point of history, so that it never happened again. Then on top of that, like I said, I was telling you about the stampede Hill, just the last stand a hill. We walked up this hill where they all was willing to get their guns and fight for their liberty and their freedom and their life. They all stood on that hill and they tried to prevent these white racist, white supremerists from marching up into the air into that land, their homes, their businesses, And that's you might as well say,
that's some memorial because they got murdered. They got slaughtered. They got killed on this stampede hill and they made a little monument, but it's a sacred land where people dying and was murdered and killed for protecting their liberty, their homes, their children, that wi, their businesses, and they
got sloughted. My security, we walked up that hill, we overlooked the whole Greenwood area there was eventually rebuilt after the massacre, and then in around nineteen sixty they used emminent domain to put freeways through the property and take it again, and that ultimately Tulsa is not what it used to be. It's a historical site. It's a site where people can come by and like we did visit the museum and take a tour and walk up and down the different areas that were prominent during that time.
But the black folks they finally they left. I might have seen maybe they say it's about seven percent black now in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ultimately, we was defeated. After rebuilding, we got massacred. We showed resilience. Black people rebuilt, and in nineteen sixty the government, the local government came in and used eminent domain to destroy us again and take our land and build highways and bridges over the land.
It's not what it used to be anymore. It's just a sight seeing site now it's only seven percent blacks and TOASA now, I hardly saw any I was shocked. I saw I hardly saw any black business. I hardly saw any black businesses. I was shocked. So it's just a memory. It's just a historical site now. It's just
a tourist town now for us. But if you get a chance to visit in your lifetime, it's spoun binding, it's emotional, and it's a place where we hold space for a symbol of our resilience and our triumph and how we've devoted in our life to be successful in America and despite that, in fighting in every war, to come back to this henious wickedness and evil. So you know I'm this episode it's definite, definite called Black Wall
Street nineteen twenty one, TUSA, Oklahoma. Definite is since this is what I'm gonna feature on this episode, that's what it's gonna be called. So I hope you enjoy the next footage, which is this young man who took us on the tour all around green Wood Tosa, Oklahoma, and gave us a tour about the history and the resilience of black people of that time. So enjoyed this episode.
Was actually Booker T. Washington High School Rome night. That's the day the massac had started. So while they were having rhyme is when the mascot would have studied at that church right behind you, that is Mountain Zion Church.
There. Booker T.
Washington High School would have been right across the street from me.
So after the school was burned, the kids went to a grocery store.
That grocery store was in set on fire, and then the mascot moved into the rest of the Greenwood district.
So one of the reason Booker T.
Washington got a school named after him here he was in Greenwood, but also George Washington Carver came to black Wall Street too, And nineteen o five is when the founder O. W.
Gurley actually came into this area.
He bought the first forty acres of land in Greenwood, and the gold was to make an all black statement. That's what most of the black towns we're here for. That's why people relocated Oklahoma. So when I said that we have some of the worst racial history. It's partially due to that. Nineteen oh six, George Washington, Carver and Booker T. Washington were in Oklahoma with the different black town leaders and tried to help them apply for statehood.
Nineteen oh six is when President Theodore Roosevelt came to Muskoge, Oklahoma, and he gave a speech about the danger in the lowne in all black state in the US. The main reason was Oklahoma was oil territory and if black people controlled the oil then it would cripple America's economy. So even though they tried to apply in nineteen o six, they didn't make it through the application process before being denied.
Then in nineteen oh seven, the goup of Klansmen apply for statehood and Oklahoma became a state in nineteen oh seven. So there's really a thing called stupid Oklahoma laws. You could google it. Once you see it, you'll see that we have some of the dumbest laws you'll never find. They don't enforce a lot of them, but they technically are still on the law books. The reason being is back then you needed Sea sixty five by laws when you apply for statehood. The Glansmen did not have sixty five.
I think they only had like fifty. So they just made up things that were laws where they came from, or things they just didn't like, and those became lost here in Oklahoma. So, for instance, women are not allowed to do their own hair on a Sunday with all the cosmetology license. It's technically against the law. You won't get in trouble for it, but it is there. It's illegal to collect rainwater. It's also illegal to go in the restaurant and take a bite out of someone else's hamburger.
If the burger has cheese, it's completely legal, specifically saying hamburger.
What else.
Also illegal to capture a whale in the state of Oklahoma.
So if any of you have ever.
Been through Oklahoma, there's the Big Blue Whale and the two so Oklahoma. That was meant to be a joke to say they call it big Blue Whale in Oklahoma. That's just some of the dumb laws they made up back then just to have enough to apply for statehood. So Oklahoma had more black towns than anywhere in the US. We still have I think fourteen that have city governments. Back then, I think it was close to the forty.
Some of them are mad named.
After these churches are the Dying is Burning, Rennisville, tab clear View, Tallahassee Red Bird Lang Steel one only is still one. So yeah, so when we talk about the history here, how many of y'all ever seen Killers of the Flyer move y'all seen the movie?
Yet you gotta go there today because it's like for you and a half hours.
But most says territory is only about five miles to the north of here.
The family that they're talking.
About in the movie that happened about three weeks technically was three weeks before Greenwood was burned. So back then, even though this was considered its own place that it's on US Federal post Office which gave it a US Federal post codes, this would have been its own town. After Greenwood was burned, they did have to take loans
out from Tulsa banks. Some of them just pulled their money out for Part of the reason fire was used is karencine virus can't be put out with just water, and as so your bank statements and your land d's were more likely inside of your home at the time. So once those things are burned, there's no record of how much money you have in the bank. So when you went to the Tasa banks, you got whatever amount they said you had in the bank, not an accurate amount of.
What you technically had.
And then also once the land was destroyed, you had to be reissued another land d which you would have to then pay taxes to Tulsa to get. Our land e's were separated because of a lady named Aida Glenn. Aida Glenn was a nine year old black girl.
She is the one who made.
Tasa the oil capital of the world. Glynpool, Oklahoma, which is just to the south of here, is named after her. That was one of the largest oil strikes in Oklahoma history. It ended up producing in today's money, almost three hundred million dollars worth of oil.
Her family only got about forty one million of that.
Right after that is when our land d's were changed in Oklahoma, whereas land rights and our mineral rights are separate. So when you're asked like how these people getting money, it's all rights.
Oil rights were taken by mostly landsman.
Uh.
If they were owned by Native American people, all you had to do was kill the husband and they married the wife and you would inherit her land or you can adopt black and Native kids because they had land allotments and they were on the Dodge Roll which Henry Dodds created to track Native Americans.
So uh, the.
Only ones the freemen from the Greeks were getting paid for a long time, but the rest of 'em worth. I don't have it in the iPad, but I do have a photo of how many of y'all have ever seen like the uh a dodge roll card before part So there's one that shows you how they actually got a lot of the land, and it was by omitting black people.
So if you were on the.
Road then landsmen were able to pay back. Then it was five dollars and they could take your road part number, so your name would be omitted on the road scene and then they could put their name.
On the lak Uh.
Let me see this, So the hearing sans that those people were omitted, and then on to the side.
You can see who was added. As far as the Greenwood district when o'd w.
Gurley got here, after he purchased the first forty eighters of land, his rule was he would only sell it to other black people.
He brought his wife.
Here who was also a millionaire in today's money. The first thing he built here was actually a rooming house or hotel, and one of the rules he had in Greenwood was no structure could be by itself, so if you had a building, you had to let another family put a business inside of it. So that's what maximized the space here. O. W. Gurley was responsible for helping start one hundred and two businesses in the Greenwood district. There were only one hundred and ninety seven, so everything
went through him. He was also the fireman, the elected official, and the sheriff, so he had everybody's jobs. The hotel he built ended up being the largest hotel in Oklahoma, largest black on hotel in Oklahoma, and then he recruited JB.
Strafford to move here. JB.
Strafford ended up building the largest black on hotel in all of the US.
So we will go to the location where that used to be. But o'd w.
Gurley was arrested foring sit in the riot. He was put into the internment camp. He got out a few days later. The only thing he rebuilt was a very first hotel, and then he moved to California to Los Angeles region. His wealth in today's money was anywhere between eight and twelve.
Million, counter fluctuates depend on what you're reading.
By the time he died, he would have had less than three hundred thousand. So he lost everything while he was here, and so did his wife.
We will see a monument that has her.
Insurance claim on there, bless you. It doesn't have ow gurdleies. He didn't bought one.
And then J. B.
Strafford was the wealthiest person in the Greenwood district, but all of his businesses were destroyed, and he.
Also did not follow the strict his claim.
So as we walk the district, gonna get closer up here on Gap Band Avenue right now, some of y'all might be a little y'all to no gap.
Then the rest of us do.
This is called they're called the Gap band because of Greenwood, Archer and Pine. So if you're on Greenwood in between Archer and Pine, you're in the gap.
So right now you are in the gap.
The song that most known for his outstanding the other one is you Dropped the.
Bomb on Me. So the title was about Greenwood. Song is not so if you listen to a sneak and that's what it is.
Yeah, all right, So any questions while we're right here, We're all good. So this particular area here, this is the Greenwill Culture Center behind me. These monuments are what actually taught me. I had family in Greenwood. My grandma never talked about that portion of it until I was probably twenty seven twenty eight. As you can tell, I joke and play a lot. My grandmother's last name is Brewer. I saw Moses Brewer on here, so I was like, Grandy,
you really old. You gotta know who these people are. She was like, well, yeah, it's my uncle. Why he like, well, his name is on this monument. But then my last name is on here too, which is Ransom. My grandfather and his aunt had a tailoring company here. So this, if there's anything you should take a picture of, it would be this because this is the people who.
Filed an insurance claim.
This is not all of the people that were in the Greenwood district, but you may have had a family member down here, you just didn't know it because none of these people were actually from Tosa, Oklahoma. They moved here from York DC area of Virginia, Kentucky. Like they literally came here from all over the US because they
were trying to help establish the Black State. And so a lot of people that I give tours too, they do find their family names on here, and then they go back and find out that, yeah, they would have had, you know, some relatives here in the Greenwood District. And of course these numbers are all the way back in nineteen twenty one, so they'd be a lot higher now. The largest insurance claim on here is Emma Gurleys, which is one hundred and sixty one thousand, six hundred and
eighty three dollars. She is right there, so that's O. W. Gurley's wife. That's about two point seven million dollars today. The Dreamland Theater was owned by the Williams family, Lula and John one hundred and thirty nine thousand, three hundred and thirty four dollars and fifty cents. That was the largest black woman owned theater in Oklahoma. She had three back then, one in Muskogee, one in Oakamoga, and then
won here. The one here was seven hundred and fifty seats and it was the only one with their conditioning at the time. So that's the one I would have picked if I had to do. Would have been directly on the other side of that highway, and then when she rebuilt it, they tore it down again and put the highway directly on top of where the Dreamland was.
It was also one of the last places burned during the maskers, so that's what most people that's the picture most people have seen before is the Dreamland signed hanging off of the building. This was the very first time
planes have been used Obama Americans Ball the Americans. But Greenwood is actually almost right in the middle of what's called the Red Summer that goes from nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty four, and in that time period that were over thirty six Black towns that would burn the exact same way. Greenwood just happened to be the time more people died here than any of the others, and then planes were not used in any of the other blacktown maskers.
But it got the name Red Summer from East Saint Louis.
The town leaders in East Saint Louis were all hung from street lamps and dis and bowed, so the streets were completely red with blood when people came out the next day. That's how it got the name Red Summer and then that part of that clan fax actually traveled.
The country and they burned towns.
TUSA was actually founded by klansmen, So inside of that iPad there was the Plan role from nineteen eighteen Tulsa's founding father. Tusa's founding father was Tate Brady. He was the founder of TUSA, but he was also listed as the chairman of the Plan in nineteen eighteen. But in nineteen nineteen is when he denounced his clansmanship and he became a Cherokee man. He went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for Cherokee rights.
Reason being he his wife, her real husband.
Disappeared, and then he married her and then he inherited her land, which was a little bit over seventy acres, which is where his house is built, and a lot of his land was built there. But there's a lot of places in Tulsa, Oklahoma that are actually named after klansmen. The neighborhood I grew up in that I still live in. It's called the Heights now, but it was Brady Heights up until like a year and a half, Yeah, year
and a half, two years ago. Yeah, So I live I'm on Seanne between Marshall Lackin and you black.
Yeah, the street.
So that actually ended up becoming a black neighborhood in like the forties and the fifties, and then the Klansmen moved out. It's now back to being a white neighborhood, but it was predominantly.
Black back then.
We have a part owing part which is named after Judge Robert Owen, who is the one who denied all these insurance claims, but he's listed in there as a committee member of the Klan.
And then you got R. L. Jones Airport on the south side.
It's named after Richard Lloyd Jones, who was the writer for the Tasa Tribune who wrote the articles that kind of helped start the Master itself telling people to arm themselves. Negros are planning and up rising in Greenwood, and of course he wrote dead Dick Rowland was supposed to be lynched for Sultan Sarah Page, so that place is named after him.
Most of the Greenwood.
District was named after Tate Brady. It was all called Brady. It was called the Brady Arts District up until about three years ago.
So he's tell them what the the Shenanigan sid Yeah, Yeah, the one where it's still named after Braddy. Yes, so it is still named after Brady.
You just got nowhere to go, and if you on Google Maps, it is still there. A lot of the businesses still say they're on Brady Street. They changed it the Reconciliation Way when but the apartments is it The Metron Brady is right on the border of Greenwood, but it's called the Metron Brady because that's Brady Street.
To be honest, it only changed because people like you all are.
Gonna be coming here h twenty with twenty nineteen change.
Twenty eighteen is when they changed it.
King's ball room had a star in front of it that says Tate Brady. He killed himself in nineteen twenty four in the kitchen of his house, thank goodness. And then that used to be his parking garage. But his name is actually still on the building. So people made like, you know, of course they wanted that start taking up. So the city did say, oh well, we're gonna take
up the start. But if you look right above where the star was, his name is on the buildings and it says Brady nineteen twenty four because he killed.
Himself that year.
So a lot of it is real subtle. If you're not really paying attention to it, you wouldn't know. Even when they have we have a festival, Mayfest Festival. They moved it to Greenwood. Technically it's not on Greenwood. It happens on Detroit Elgin, but it's advertised that it's in the black Wall Street district, but not really even as concrete is brand new. We got this in twenty twenty one.
It like this before y'all got here. You know, it's actually a flame up there that's supposed to be lych.
It has not been leased in twenty twenty one. You're gonna see on the other side, it's not a foot spin. It's just a real muddy.
Pond over there. But that mountain used to work until after the centennial was over, and then everything went back to what.
It was, and so even the clean up of this area, stuff like that, it was really all the show did it right for six months or so and then went back to the way we normally do things. These second paragraph on theirs, what actually talks about the Greenwood district, which is the Greenwood area is something of the most devastating single incident of racial violence in.
The twentieth century on June first, I'll stopped there.
It actually happened May thirty first, but it was a sixteen hour battle, so.
It went from May thirty first to June first.
Benison's following the historic false flame was assault in twenty four hours. As many as three hundred black citizens died, thirty six square blocks, twenty three churches, and more than two thousand businesses and homes went up in flames. Again, that number is one hundred ninety seven businesses, one two
hundred and fifty six homes. Fig Gray Paul hung over Toas's northern horizon for days as a result of the mass of fires, with hands raised before the guns and soldiers and estimated six thousand black men, women and children trustpassed Greenwood and Archer Streets.
The temporary internment camps.
Once those people got out of those internment camps, they were given tents and that's what they lived in until they were able to rebuild their facilities in their business. The person who filed all of these insurance claims, his name was Buck Colbert Franklin BC Franklin, So John Hope Franklin Park is named after his that's his son He actually filed these insurance claims from directly in front of that street, a little small tree right by the street.
That's where he filed all of these insurance claims from. He did every last one of them. The city of Tulsa did actually change the fire ordinance here three days after the master to say any structure that was not fireproof the city could confiscate the land.
So again this is three days after it was burned.
So it was BC Franklin who sued the city of Tulsa helped get the people that land back, but then they were denied every insurance claim after that.
The only claim that was paid was to J. W. McGee. He got paid for his guns and ammunition. That was a white man who lived in Greenwood.
He owned a sporting goods store and his guns and ammunition was stolen, so he was paid. But nobody else on this list has ever been paid, even up until today.
So the amount of two million.
Seven hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and forty five dollars and sixty one cents comes out to about forty eight million dollars today. If you're a numbers person, if you were to multiply that buy. I did it at one hundred years three percent a year. That number came out to two point one billion dollars, which most businesses tend to grow twelve to fifteen percent a year. I did it at three just in case they weren't no good at business, but they were, so it would have
been a lot higher than that. But when you hear about the most prominent black business district, you're actually hearing about the second generation of people that were here, not the first. The first generation did make quite a bit of money, but the rebuild of Greenwood.
Is actually what made the most.
And then it was in the green book for the Negro motorists.
It was a part of the Chittling circuit, so Nat King, Cole, Billie Holliday, they all used to come perform here.
So second generation is when Greenwood actually ended up growing. So it went from one hundred and ninety seven businesses to two hundred and thirty eight, from thirty six city blocks to forty city blocks. So most people just think it was all three nineteen twenty one, but it was actually that second generation that grew out. Those buildings are that's some of the only ones that are still around.
For back then that used to be a knack then.
All right, so we're gonna go on the other side, check out some of the businesses and then we'll what what what breaks that just got that few years ago?
Was it?
I was on the ground, the ground, it just leaves over.
If the second generation was prosperous more then the first.
What happened? Just the freeway, that highway? What's the devastation?
Yep?
Domain, So the leadst the legal So this time they used legislation.
Legal law. The demolished the second generation. So the reason they couldn't actually fight that Urban.
Renewal was a federal program that gave each city the right to put a highway wherever they wanted. Uh, the irony is our mayor, now his grandfather is the put that highway here. He decided he wanted it there. So back then they had to pay thirty percent of your property value, at least thirty percent, so you would get thirty percent of what your property was worth. But if you didn't take the money, they were gonna tear down anyway. So it was a lout to take the money or not.
But that thirty percent is also just enough for you to go rent another space but not actually buy one. And so by putting that highway there and turn it up, they did what they couldn't do the first time, which was.
Take the land owner ship away.
So once the land was taken from the people, there was no way for them to rebuild. And since Greenwood's second generation, that has not been a black on gas station since then. He just got the first black on grocery store two years ago, or there's not been a black on hotel here or anything like that. So these are the ones that were burned. This is all one hundred and ninety seven of them. It does have a US Federal post office here, so technically to burn the
Greenwoods should have been a federal crime. It was not tried as a federal crime. But if you would have burned a post office today, you are going.
To the fix. There's quite a few hotels on here.
Fourteen different hotels in Greenwood the first time, and then they had sixteen.
The second time.
Barry Jones' parents had a private school, and then Madam C. J. Walker had a beauty parlor here. It actually used to be right underneath where the highway is too.
And then what else.
This is a list of the black doctors with practice in this area up until two thousand and then it was two thousand and six. We didn't have this many black doctors in the entire city until two thousand and six. So Greenwood had it first. How many have y'all ever been to a black owned hospital?
Don't look he there? Yeah, I didn't even know this was a thing. That's wrong. Okay, well, yeah you an. S Pristill Memorial was the first hospital they had here, and then it was more than the second time. But if you're from the South, we call it Moton, then it ain't Morton to us. Been my favorite. They would have had a waffle house down here. I don't know why I love wafe house what I do? It would have been right where that white van is over there. I was Cameron Street. So once they rebuilt.
It, they put it there, and then the highway toy up Camon Street.
All right, who else is gonna hear? Jackson undertaking company?
That is actually Michael Jackson's family. Tito Jackson comes here a few times a year. That's Joe Jackson's uncle. Wish they'd have found that out with Michael was still here, because maybe he had pulled up it actually is still functioning now though it's called Jack's Funeral Service now, but that one used to be here.
What else.
Couston had their own libraries here, Cotton Clubs.
So listen to Knox.
He was actually from Harlem, so he brought his guy the Club from Harlem to here and.
He plans for a memorial for the second generation of success in Tosa. I want to get your name for Victor lu Lucker's son, Lucas Lucasen.
Okay, Victor Lucasen.
This is Malik from Malik's Bookshelf bringing the world together with books, culture and community. And when I see an author, especially a non fiction author, I like to get some words about their book and just what inspired you to write Built from the Fire.
So Victor Lucason tell us.
About this wonderful new book that was released.
By Random House, Built from the Fire.
Yeah, so I'm Victim. I'm the author Built from the Fire. My book just came out in May, and it's really a full account of the Greenwood's history. You're gonna learn about not only the race massacre, that traumatic event, but also the building up of Greenwood. You know, how they created this eating of the western Oklahoma how they rebuild it after the race masker, what's going on there now?
Afi followed several families for generations across Greenwood, so you really get that generation of saga and learn about black folks doing for themselves, working together, building you know something that we all now idolizing Revere in Black Wall Street.
That's really what this story is about.
It's about black success, Black holid aarity, black community.
Wow. Wow.
Why is that important?
If people know this history and learns in what happened here at Tasa Oklahom.
I mean, one reason it's important is because none of us got taught at in school. You know, I didn't learn this in school. My friends didn't learn it. I didn't need you know what I mean? But this is, this is this is vital American history, not only because of the race Master, but because of that idea of black success. We don't get taught about black success when we're young people in America, and so I think getting those kind of lessons two people of all ages is vital.
And that's why there's a book, as I said, really focuses on the black experience in Greenwood, the way this folks were able to overcome so many obstacles across generations, and so are so are today We're near agree with right now, and we saw basually are facing here in this community right now that folks are working to overcome.
You know, I just found out that.
The Massacre from nineteen twenty one that they rebuilt and it was the imminent domain that destroyed the prosperity in the building of you know, after the nineteen twenty one touch on that for me a little bit because I just found that out today.
Yeah, So Greenwood was rebuilt after the race of Massacre had a second heyday thirties, forties and fifties. For the nineteen sixties, the government put a highway right in the middle of the neighborhood. It is still there today. And also with emminent domain, they took hundreds of properties from black landowners in that era. And so my book goes through in great detail all that I'm folded that kind of second theft of the neighborhood in the book.
I call it slower burn, that.
Second destruction and the strain point I understanding that history too to really understand why black communities are the way they are today across the United States.
I got one more.
Question because you probably get this question sometimes, why bring up this old history when this is twenty twenty three and we should just move on. Can you talk about how you address those types of questions, Why we bring it up old history and bringing up killing off the band aid of old wounds when we should be just focusing on to now and getting along now. And how can we get along if we keep ripping off the band aid?
About these my slinkers and I mean my singers.
Yeah, Well, the first thing you got to understand is that American history is.
Not a line, it's a circle. You know.
We live in cycles in this community, in this country, and so when you learn about Greenwood, a lot of ways, you're learning about some of the obits we may be facing in the future. The race masker was violent, yes, but we have racer of violence going on right now in America. That kind of violence and hatred, it can always re emerge. So there's no way we can bury the history because we're always dealing with it in this country.
Absolutely, and we need to be mindful that this can be repeated if we don't learn the lessons from yesterday.
I mean, there's things that's.
Going around right now and just systematic and discriminating in people and gentrification and destruction of our culture and our history. It's still happening today, banned books.
So you know, give me your.
Final thoughts and from my audience on Belief's bookshelf.
Well, you know, I think learning, learning our through is vital, Learning true history is vital. There's so many challenges to our true history going on right now across the United States. So whether you read my book or anybody else's book, that's accurate, that's true, that's courageous. That's want people to embrace that true Black history because that's all we got.
You heard it first hand, so you gotta pick your copy up. Built from the Fire by Victor Lucason.
I gotta get it right, get it tight.
Thanks for listening to Malik's bookshelf with topics on the shelf are books, culture, and community.
Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check out my instagram at Maleak Books. See you next time.