The Burning, by Tim Madigan (adapted by Hilary Beard)

Photo by Wil C. Fry

★★★★ (of 5)

Full Title: The Burning: Black Wall Street And The Tulsa Race Massacre Of 1921
Author: Tim Madigan (adapted by Hilary Beard)
Year: 2021 (mine was library hardcover)
Pages: 254*
Genre: History
Publisher: Henry Holt And Company (Macmillan)
ISBN 978-1-250-78769-9 (hardcover)

(* 254 pages does not include Introduction, Prologue, Author’s Note, Acknowledgements, Chapter Notes, Source Notes, Resources, or Index)

Summary

Apparently Madigan first published his groundbreaking work in 2001, under the title: The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, And The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921, but I heard nothing about it (despite living in Oklahoma at the time and paying somewhat close attention to the news). I first became aware of the Tulsa massacre a few years later — I’m not sure exactly when — and it continued to sink into my awareness over the next several years. (It was depicted, at least in part, in the 2019 HBO miniseries Watchmen.) And then I saw this “young adult” adaptation of Madigan’s work in my public library.

The 1921 Tulsa race massacre was one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, though estimates of the death toll vary widely. Yet it is either skipped entirely in history classes or mentioned extremely briefly. As many as 300 people were killed as mobs of armed white people invaded the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood, known colloquially as “Black Wall Street”, burning and looting homes, shooting to kill, and celebrating their “success” at destroying part of their own city. On top of the death toll, more than 800 people were injured, 6,000 Black people were incarcerated in a makeshift facilities for days afterward, 10,000 were left homeless, and millions of dollars (in 1921 values) in property damage occurred. And then the city spent decades pretending it never happened.

This book tells the story of the incident.

The Good

I don’t know what Madigan’s original work was like, but the young adult adaptation I read was clear and informative. Simply knowing about the massacre is transformative, and reading this book brings that knowledge.

There are stunning quotations and descriptions. Sadly, what stunned me most about a few of them was how similar they are to racist things people still say and believe today. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was surprised by the actions and words of some of the white people, given how we are often led to assume “everyone was racist back then”. For example, one white business owner, whose only friends were his Black employees, drove to the impromptu detention center as soon as he heard of it and signed out his employees and their families, housing them on his own property (until the city’s police department forced such Black families to leave white neighborhoods). Or the white sheriff who, on the previous day, refused to give up a Black teen to a lynch mob and staked his own life on protecting the suspect.

Points Off For...

There were a few places where verb conjugations didn’t seem to agree with subjects, or singular phrases were matched with plurals antecedents. (I didn’t write down specific examples, but think of how this made-up sentence doesn’t work: “Twenty families wanted to buy a house.” It says a house when the author surely meant plural houses.)

There was also a difficult-to-follow order to the narrative. It begins in 1957 with a high school student in Tulsa hearing about the massacre for the first time. And it ends with that same guy (Don Ross) becoming a state legislator and helping to establish a memorial in North Tulsa that commemorates the massacre. In between those bookends, the story still wasn’t chronological except for the events in 1921. Before that, there’s a church scene used to introduce some of the major characters, but instead of a paragraph of history for each, we’re taken on a several-page ride for each of them. Don’t misunderstand, those bios were interesting — showing how many of Greenwood’s residents had struggled and worked under white supremacy for generations, finally arriving to some semblance of success in northern Tulsa — but set as they were within the supposed story of the church scene, to which the author kept returning, it made the overall narrative seem disjointed and confusing.

Conclusion

The story of the Tulsa massacre is powerful and astounding, and for the most part this book captures that power. Meant as it is for young people, part of the prologue is Beard’s trigger warning of sorts. She worried “about how the details of Black people being so brutally victimized might land on Black children and parents”, but she also worried about “how the reality of such pervasive White violence might impact White readers, most of whom have likely been taught a sanitized version of their role in American history.” She told of how she managed the overwhelming emotions while working on the project, suggesting the same for her readers (do yoga, go for a walk or swim, take a break of some other kind, etc.) Personally, I didn’t quite find myself needing this advice, but I did weep during my reading, my throat aching from the constriction.

I suggest this book (or, tentatively, Madigan’s original version) to anyone and everyone. At least read the Wikipedia article on the massacre, or a newspaper article.