'One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Across the Tracks is a celebration and memorial of Greenwood, Oklahoma
'In Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre, author Alverne Ball and illustrator Stacey Robinson have crafted a love letter to Greenwood, Oklahoma. Also known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood was a community whose importance is often overshadowed by the atrocious massacre that took place there in 1921.
'Across the Tracks introduces the reader to the businesses and townsfolk who flourished in this unprecedented time of prosperity for Black Americans. We learn about Greenwood and why it is essential to remember the great achievements of the community as well as the tragedy which nearly erased it. However, Ball is careful to recount the eventual recovery of Greenwood. With additional supplementary materials including a detailed preface, timeline, and historical essay, Across the Tracks offers a thorough examination of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Black Wall Street.'
I knew a little about the Tulsa Race Massacre before reading this book, I knew that it happened in a Black neighbourhood, that the white population came in and destroyed everything and killed hundreds, simply for the crime of being Black, but I never knew much more than that; and I knew that I was in a minority of people who knew about it, mainly due to my fascination with history, and those parts of it that are often overlooked. The fact that this isn't something that's more widely known, however, and that some people only found out that this event happened thanks to the Watchmen television series is absolutely appalling. Hopefully this book will help to further educate people about this awful event.
This book focuses on not just the events of the massacre, but the history of Greenwood, and helps to make it clear to readers just how amazing and rare this place was. Alverne Ball goes into the history of this town, they describe how O. W. Gurley ought the land in 1905, how he would go on to sell portions of it to Black families to allow them not only a place to live, but a place that was their own, that belonged to them. The book goes on to describe how the building of this community wasn't just important for the Black population, but how it became a pioneer of Black owned businesses, and how in a system that was supposed to keep Black people poor the citizens of Tulsa flourished.
The book hammers home how Greenwood not just beat the odds, but smashed them. It became a town that was in a lot of ways strides ahead of many others, and it's a story that's incredibly inspirational. Sadly, the reason that Greenwood is so infamous isn't because of how much its citizens achieved, but how much they were forced to endure. On the 31st of May 1921 a young Black man called Dick Rowland was arrested under suspicion of assaulting a white woman. This suspicion was all that was needed for the white population to justify a lynching, and this would be the beginning of the event that would make Greenwood infamous.
Trying to prevent the lynching the Black members of the community tried to disrupt the white men gathered around the courthouse, hoping to get hold of Rowland. Unfortunately, this resulted in a confrontation that would lead to the white mob being deputised, and unleashed against Greenwood. With armed gangs in the street, and planes dropping bombs on homes, Greenwood was destroyed, and over 300 people lost their lives.
The book doesn't sugarcoat these events. It shows the brutality of what went on, and makes it clear that the Black community were the victims of racial hatred, that Greenwood and its population was almost destroyed because of the prejudice that was rampant in America at the time. Despite this, the book manages to end on a note of hope, going on to show readers how the population rebuilt, and how they didn't let this event beat them.
Across the Tracks shows the awfulness of what happened at Tulsa, the brutality that the Black population faced, yet managed to fight through. It shows an awful, ugly side of humanity, yet an amazingly beautiful one too. It shows that even when being held back people can still achieve amazing things, and that communities can come together to rebuild in the face of tragedy. The Tulsa Race Massacre should not be forgotten, it should not be something that people learn about for the first time as adults watching a comic book show. This should be something that people are taught in schools, it should be a lesson on how racism and discrimination are awful, destructive forces, and things that should never be repeated.
Sadly, I don't see this being a subject that schools will cover, and I think it will continue to be a well hidden secret of America's past; so it's down to books like this, to creators like Alverne Ball and Stacey Robinson to spread this story, to teach people about this dark moment from American history. I just sincerely hope that this book will be given that chance to educate, enlighten, and enrich.
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