The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Paperback)

~ Tim Madigan (Author) "On a warm May night in 1913, in the shadowy lamplight of Green-wood's First Baptist Church, Mrs. Lucy Davis read the audience a short essay..." (more)
Key Phrases: black quarter, white mob, great burning, Greenwood Avenue, John Williams, Dick Rowland (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1921 in Tulsa, Okla., hundreds of black residents of the prosperous Greenwood community were massacred by a mob of white townspeople. Madigan, a reporter with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, deftly locates the carnage in its proper political and cultural setting. Unlike previous accounts, this one shows how the riot touched individual lives by creating full-scale portraits of black and white citizens of oil-rich Tulsa. He fashions absorbing narratives from his interviews with survivors and from information uncovered by the 1997 Tulsa Race Riot Commission. Individual voices combine to relate the tragic chain of events, the madness and atmosphere of hate that compelled the white mob to torch almost every building in Greenwood. The earnest Sheriff McCullough worried about vigilantes running amok; the racist publisher Richard Lloyd Jones sought to sell newspapers by appealing to white bias; the defiant ex-slave Townsend Jackson refused to comply with Jim Crow laws; and the hapless Dick Rowland's arrest for accidentally bumping into a white girl triggers the slaughter. Madigan's skill at description, dialogue and pacing keeps the reader's interest at peak levels, and he does not gloss over brutal scenes of murder, arson and torture. Many other accounts have ignored the strong resistance of many Greenwood blacks against white marauders. Madigan draws implicit connections between one of the bloodiest racial atrocities in U.S. history and today's racial climate by concluding his timely history lesson with an update of the Tulsa commission findings and the city's move toward healing and reconciliation. 16 pages b&w photos not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Journalist Madigan (See No Evil: Blind Devotion and Bloodshed in David Koresh's Holy War) here tackles one of America's worst race riots, chronicling the shocking events of May 31 and June 1, 1921 when a white mob numbering in the thousands obliterated the African American community of Greenwood, OK, near Tulsa. Race riots and tensions were very common after World War I, but what makes the Greenwood incident unique was the unheard-of organization of the mob and the completeness of the destruction (35 city blocks systematically burned and destroyed along with hundreds of casualties). Though it is arguably America's worst race riot, surprisingly little has been written about it in the mainstream press. For this work, Madigan relied on taped interviews of survivors and witnesses, newspaper accounts, scholarly papers and theses, and interviews with the descendants of survivors. What results is a highly readable account of the circumstances and history surrounding the event and its aftermath. Truly an eye-opening book, this is essential reading for anyone struggling to understand race relations in America. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Robert Flatley, Frostburg State Univ., MD
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312302479
• ISBN-13: 978-0312302474
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #161,745 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts human faces on this tragedy, December 28, 2001

By	Andre M. "brnn64" (Mt. Pleasant, SC United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Hardcover)

Up to this point, Tulsa native Scott Ellsworth's "Death In a Promised Land" has been the best book on the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, but Tim Madigan has done an excellent job with this story. Ellsworth's (who graciously gave Madigan assistance with this volume) book on this subject was written in a scholarly "matter of factly" tone, well-written and long on historical detail but somewhat short of passion for the subject. Madign gets deep into the emotions of the people behind the events and trasforms this detail into a story that the readers can identify with. The details and excellent use of primary sources makes it hard to beleive that it only took a year to write this book! Historians and casual readers will both find this book interesting (if extremely sad) reading. However, the ending does say much for the triumph of the human spirit and the book does give and interesting lesson to the depths and heights of human behavior.

You may still want to check out Ellworth's book for a primary introduction to the subject, as it goes a bit deeper into the background of Tulsa to understand the events. But overall, Madigan's work is as of now the best book on this subject.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American History 101, May 21, 2002

By	The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Hardcover)

Prosperous and comfortable life was destroyed one fateful summer day in 1921. The Tulsa burrough of Greenwood was once a place where African-Americans thrived. It was known as the "promised land" to blacks living in the Jim Crow South, and thousands of African-Americans migrated there, searching for a better life. There they erected beauty parlors, movie theaters, restaurants, dry cleaners, and numerous other businesses. These businesses were patronized by other Greenwood residents who worked for white Tulsans, but who were not allowed to buy goods and services at white-owned establishments.

This was all brought to a screeching halt when a young black man by the name of Dick Rowland had a misleading encounter with a white woman in an elevator. The charges were ridiculous and white officials knew it. However, the officials promised Rowland his day in court. But, a leading local newspaper used yellow journalism to sell papers that day. The headline read "TO LYNCH NEGRO TONIGHT."

Greenwood blacks had heard the horrific tales of lynchings and destruction across the country. The Greenwood residents proclaimed "Not here." So, when an angry white mob gathered at the courthouse where Rowland was being held, the Greenwood people became nervous. After assembling, they decided to drive across the tracks to the white section of Tulsa armed with their rifles to make sure the mob wasn't going to carry out the headline.

Feeling as if they were being threatened by the blacks, the whites armed themselves immediately after the car left. This was the turning point, for it was no longer about Dick Rowland. It was about the perception that the blacks thought they could come into town and threaten the whites. It was about the fact that many blacks in Greenwood lived better than their white counterparts. It was about greed, it was about jealousy, and it was about hate.

Fueled by this hate, over the next two days, white Tulsans murdered over 300 black Greenwood residents. They burned homes, businesses, schools, and churches. They shot any black person they saw in the white side of town, and stacked their bodies on flatbed trucks, to be hauled to unmarked graves in the countryside. The Greenwood townspeople did not give up without a fight, however. They defended their homes and community with fervor. But they were outnumbered and outgunned and soon, Greenwood was nothing but ash, a shadow of its former existence.

Tim Madigan writes a comprehensive account of the maelstrom that occured those days in Oklahoma. He uses personal interviews, historical documents, oral histories, and narration to bring The Burning together. The book reads like fiction, the interviewees and survivors have strong voices, and even those who witnessed the destruction, but have since passed, have their say against the tragedy that was The Burning. Everyone should know about what happened in Tulsa. It is as much part of our history as the Revolutionary War or the Watts Riots. Madigan provides an excellent vehicle for this discovery.

Reviewed by Candace K

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why not a map?, March 22, 2003

By	Ken Lucas (Phoenix, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Hardcover)

Tim Madigan's lively, vivid and long over-due account of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 is a journalistic treasure. As one who originally hailed from Kansas and had been in and out of Tulsa twice a year since 1947, I was certainly familiar with the Oil Capitol; thus, Madigan's book spoke to me from the book rack. However, I found myself frustrated by the lack of a map of the Greenwood area. I actually had to buy a map of Tulsa and sit down with underlined passages in order to recreate exactly where Greenwood was. This is not the author's fault but it certainly is the fault of his editor at Thomas Dunne Books. (Too be honest, other books about the same subject also see maps as expendible). In any case you can smell the smoke in Madigan's account and you get a viseral reaction to the whole sad scene. The book is tangible proof that Ben Jonson was correct when he said that "Sunlight is the best solvent."