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The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice
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About This Book
And then they were gone. More than one thousand homes and businesses. Restaurants and movie theaters, churches and doctors' offices, a hospital, a public library, a post office. Looted, burned, and bombed from the air. Over the course of less than twenty-four hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa's infamous "Black Wall Street" was wiped off the map--and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than fifty years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa Race Massacre. It also unearths the lost history of how the massacre was covered up, and of the courageous individuals who fought to keep the story alive. Most importantly, it recounts the ongoing archaeological saga and the search for the unmarked graves of the victims of the massacre, and of the fight to win restitution for the survivors and their families. Both a forgotten chronicle from the nation's past, and a story ripped from today's headlines, The Ground Breaking is a page-turning reflection on how we, as Americans, must wrestle with the parts of our history that have been buried for far too long.
Reviews
"Though documenting a particular place and time, it helps us understand the race-based and sectarian turmoil that is so pervasive today ..."
"Interviews with survivors and reflections on the debate over reparations and the social, economic, and racial divisions of modern-day Tulsa add depth to Ellsworth's portrait of a community attempting to heal from an unimaginable injustice."
"He refuses to shy away from the history — no matter how uncomfortable ..."
"But the story he tells is an essential one, with just a glimmer of hope in it."
"Finally, through the efforts of the author and other interested persons, including journalists, 'There was no question that Greenwood and the massacre were working their way into the country's historical memory book.' The Ground Breaking makes a valuable contribution toward that and, if for no other reason, is worth a read."
"It is particularly poignant as 2021 marks the centennial of the massacre."
"Ellsworth not only recounts the horrific crimes; he also traces the chain of journalists and researchers who preceded him in revealing the details."
"filled with moments like these — candid and self-aware, undergirded by Ellsworth's earnest efforts to get at this history, and to get it right ..."
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