Black Birds in the Sky: the story and legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Review
In “Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre”, written by Brandy Colbert, the reader shifts between the complex history of Oklahoma, slavery, and the Tulsa Massacre. The book begins with the captivating and triumphant story of Dick Rowland. Colbert’s choice to use this as the opener acts as both a hook to reel the reader in and as a forewarning of what's to come. The novel truly begins with Oklahoma’s extensive history. There she provides the history of the original people of Oklahoma and the great loss and torture they suffered at the hands of colonizers. She highlights the land disputes that occurred when the Europeans arrived and finally dives into the origins of Tusla. Further into the novel, Colbert maps out Greenwood Avenue with precise details in order to transport the reader back to 1921 Tulsa city. She weaves in the daily lives of shopkeepers and citizens along with brutal accounts of lynching and hate crimes. Colbert is able to explain the Tulsa Massacre in a way that young adults will be able to understand, but she is careful to not oversimplify or sugarcoat the tragedy. Additionally, she does an excellent job at naming as many victims as possible and highlighting how truly successful Greenwood was (a fact that is often glossed over). Images are used to aid with visuals and to provide the reader with more context.
While the novel is dominated by factual accounts and histories, the author’s excellent craftsmanship makes it obvious to any reader that what they are reading is far different from any textbook ever assigned to them in school. Colbert strikes a sweet balance in the novel between detailed, informative writing and emotional, impactful storytelling. She weaves her way in and out of narratives, supplying the reader with valuable, and often commonly unknown historical context that adds layers of depth to the work. While the novel is centered around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, she gives extensive geographical and cultural background on the subject, going as far back as 9500 BCE to examine the roots of the area and its culture and jumping ahead as recent as Donald Trump’s presidency to apply the history to the current climate of the country. And even though the text is heavily informative and fact-based, Colbert’s voice as an author comes through strongly and necessarily, preventing the work from running stale at any point. She gives the reader insight into her personal experiences as a black woman who grew up in a white population, and the novel could almost be viewed as a direct response to her critiques of the way black history is taught in America. Colbert makes it clear to the reader that this body of work does not hold back any truths about the Tulsa Massacre and history of Black Americans as a whole with impactful quotes like, “The phrase ‘jealousy is the root of all evil’ has perhaps never been truer than in the case of white Americans who have viewed successful Black Americans as a threat,” (Colbert 117).
Meet the Author
Sources
Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy - This is an informative video that discusses the two-day attack on Black Americans in the thriving business district of Greenwood. The documentary allows the viewer to hear first-count stories from survivors and thought leaders on the disastrous event.
History of Lynching - This article, provided by the NAACP, provides the history of lynching. It covers some well known cases such as Emmet Till’s, why lynching occurred and the estimated number of victims.
Tusla Massacre: E Exhibit - This website provides an interactive experience. It provides information regarding the massacre and what led up to it. Additionally, it contains activities and helpful links.
Journal article by Chris S. Messer, published in Summer 2011 to Journal of Social History, Vol. 44, No. 4, Social Memory and Historical Justice
This article extends the literature by introducing an integrative approach to the study of race riots that incorporates critical cultural factors mediating between micro-and macro-level processes in facilitating riotous behavior.
Chapter Title: “Greenwood: Building on the Past,” Book Title: I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Book written by Charles M. Payne, published in 1995
This chapter offers a history of the city of Greenwood, detailing its roots in Native American culture and highlighting the achievements of the black Americans who managed to successfully build this thriving city.
Lesson & Activity
Lesson:Black Birds in the Sky discusses the Tulsa Massacre which has largely been left out of history textbooks. To start, have a class discussion on why this infamous moment in history seems to have been erased from American history. Follow this up by having the students number other moments in history from those they know a lot about to those they know little to nothing about and discuss why this may be.
Example List of Historical Events:
- Built on sacred Native American land and sculpted by a man with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Mount Rushmore National Memorial's entire history is controversial
- Before it became known as Mount Rushmore, the Lakota called this granite formation Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, or Six Grandfathers Mountain. For the Native people of the Great Plains, It was a place for prayer and devotion
- For Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho communities, the region was not only spiritually important, it was also where tribes gathered food and plants they used in building and medicine.
- The U.S. government signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, giving the Lakota exclusive use of the Black Hills. Within a decade, however, gold was discovered in the region and, in 1877, the U.S. broke the treaty and took over the land.
- The long-running legal dispute finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980. In the landmark United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians case, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. government had improperly taken the Black Hills territory from the Lakota, who were deemed entitled to $17.1 million in damages. But the Lakota declined the compensation and have since advocated for the return of the Black Hills instead.
- The Black Panther Party was an African American revolutionary organization that was formed in 1966. Its initial purpose was to patrol Black neighborhoods to protect residents from police brutality. The activist group was forcefully dismantled by the US government.
- The Black Panther Party was also notable for its various social programs, such as free breakfasts for children and medical clinics.
- The FBI viewed the Black Panther Party as an enemy of the U.S. government and sought to dismantle the party. Its counterintelligence program used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinformation, and lethal force.
- The FBI’s escalating campaign against the Black Panthers erupted in December 1969. That month a police raid in Chicago resulted in the deaths of local Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and a fellow Panther, Mark Clark. Several days later there was a five-hour police shoot-out at the party’s Southern California headquarters.
- The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that the director of the agency later publicly apologized for “wrongful uses of power.”
- The close-knit Mexican American communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were located on a hill overlooking downtown Los Angeles. The residents were forcefully evicted and the villages destroyed in the 1950s to make way for the Dodger Stadium
- Home to generations of Mexican Americans, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop was founded in the 1840s. They grew into strong communities, with more than 300 families running their own schools and churches and managing their own land, representing a small-town life within a major urban center.
- In 1958, the Major League Baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers were relocating to Los Angeles, and the new baseball stadium was to be built in the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop
- The residents decided to fight until the end as a unified resistance group. Given no compensation for their displacement, the citizens of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were forced to flee and find housing elsewhere, while the Dodgers’ stadium was constructed on the historic site of a now destroyed Mexican American community.
Project Handout:
Each student will be responsible for writing a 1-2 page paper that details the event their group chose. The paper should include a brief summary of their event, why they believe the event is not taught in schools, and why it is important that we know about it.
Groups should work together to create a presentation that will help teach the class about the event.
1) between 3-5 reputable sources with a work cited at the end
2) a brief summary of their event
3) why their group chose this event
4) what led up to the event
5) who was involved
6) images or a short video (if available)
*Presentation should be between 5-7 minutes in length
Lesson Goals:
- Students show critical thinking and text analysis skills to determine why some events are less discussed than others in schools.
- Students should show strong research abilities and be able to identify reliable sources
- Students should be creative and cooperative in how they go about presenting their events to the class.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.8
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and over-reliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7
Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
