Tulsa 1921

Reporting a Massacre

By: Randy Krehbiel

Narrated by: Kevin Meyer

In 1921, Tulsa’s Greenwood District - known then as the nation’s “Black Wall Street” - was one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. But on May 31 of that year, a white mob, inflamed by rumors that a young black man had attempted to rape a white teenage girl, invaded Greenwood. By the end of the following day, thousands of homes and businesses lay in ashes, and perhaps, as many as 300 people were dead.

With the clarity and descriptive power of a veteran journalist, author Randy Krehbiel digs deep into the events and their aftermath and investigates decades-old questions about the local culture at the root of what one writer has called "a white-led pogrom".

Krehbiel analyzes local newspaper accounts in an unprecedented effort to gain insight into the minds of contemporary Tulsans. In the process, he considers how the Tulsa World, the Tulsa Tribune, and other publications contributed to the circumstances that led to the disaster and helped solidify enduring white justifications for it.

In its wake, black Tulsans were denied redress and even the right to rebuild on their own property, yet they ultimately prevailed and even prospered, despite systemic racism and the rise during the 1920s of the second Ku Klux Klan.

The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

Praise for the book:

"The best book on the Tulsa tragedy of 1921 to come out in the past twenty years, or possibly ever." (Alfred L. Brophy, author of Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921 - Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation)

©2019 University of Oklahoma Press (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

informative sometimes

apologizing or ambivalent language at times when identifying racist ideas and racist policy. For a text rooted in the mass murder of African Americans, I expected a more systematic way of describing the identity of the people involved.

Inviting serious well written documentary

This was a very enlightening book about what happened in Tulsa in 1921 I never heard of it until I moved down south and people talked about it before the hundredth anniversary so I wanted to read to see what happened and how people treat each other I would recommend this to anybody that wants to read it

The Lone Star of Texas

Not enough change for racial injustice will occur until man's heart changes to reveal truth. Matthew 10:26 NLT My favorite part was the last chapter because I already knew how the story ends. Enjoyed the narration that convinced me of reliability and validity.

Thorough & thoroughly informative!

Much more than I anticipated. This book is dense with the available information of the day & requires your full attention. Great work!

Outstanding Performance !!

A very well done piece of work from beginning to end. You can visualize the whole experience through the lens of the author.
A great story of the entire event of Tulsa 1921.

Very good, but

reader sometimes overcome with a flurry of sometimes trivial facts and names. Still an excellent history and an effective narrator

Informative, important, dry in presentation

The detail of the story is both an important asset and the greatest weakness of this audiobook. It is not engaging, but learning the details of the history is important and well worth the effort. Having an academic book on this oft ignored explosion of racist violence available as an audiobook is a social value in and of itself.

Hurtful

Educational and sad at the same time. At times this book will make you angry.

Exceptional and

This book is exceptional. It is very well written and the author has done extensive research. I appreciate how the author takes a non biased approach presenting information. Thank you for writing about this tragedy in American history.

Important Contribution

Drawing mainly from Tulsa newspaper, the journalist author provides a solid and generally dispassionate and clear account of this tragic (and increasingly studied) event. Much of the book is spent on the history of Tulsa in the riot's immediate aftermath--which has been studied relatively little--and more recent past. This includes a detailed and fairly effective de-bunking of the theory of the riot being a planned event designed to open Greenwood to warehouse and industrial development, though it is clear some hoped to take advantage of the "opportunity" the destruction of black Tulsa provided. In the end, and rather heroically, African-Americans remained in Tulsa after 1921 and partly rebuilt their ruined neighborhoods not only with little help from the local government, but frequently in the face of its opposition. By fleshing out the riot's aftermath, the work is particularly valuable to read alongside other works on the riot (such as The Burning).