Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
You can submit your questions and upvote other audience questions for Victor Luckerson here: https://app.sli.do/event/biLqQeKWzHpBoysbHAAzmw
Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood was an ascendant black business district when it was burned to the ground by a white mob in 1921. Since the days after the destruction, people in power have been trying to erase the memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre, going so far as to rip pages from the historical record to hide what unfolded. This purposeful forgetting continues today, as state governments in Oklahoma and elsewhere limit what histories can be taught to children in schools. But all along black Tulsans have provided their own historical ledger, through oral histories, legal battles, and the black press. They demand that the city and the nation remember. In his lecture, Built From the Fire author Victor Luckerson will explore this century-long battle over the “terrain of the mind” in Tulsa. His talk will explore why the story of Greenwood has been wiped from the American consciousness for so long, and the ongoing efforts by black Tulsans to make that legacy more widely known.
You can submit your questions and upvote other audience questions for Victor Luckerson here: https://app.sli.do/event/biLqQeKWzHpBoysbHAAzmw
Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood was an ascendant black business district when it was burned to the ground by a white mob in 1921. Since the days after the destruction, people in power have been trying to erase the memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre, going so far as to rip pages from the historical record to hide what unfolded. This purposeful forgetting continues today, as state governments in Oklahoma and elsewhere limit what histories can be taught to children in schools. But all along black Tulsans have provided their own historical ledger, through oral histories, legal battles, and the black press. They demand that the city and the nation remember. In his lecture, Built From the Fire author Victor Luckerson will explore this century-long battle over the “terrain of the mind” in Tulsa. His talk will explore why the story of Greenwood has been wiped from the American consciousness for so long, and the ongoing efforts by black Tulsans to make that legacy more widely known.
