For decades, one of the most distressing acts of racial violence in the United States, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, had been largely suppressed. But the events that led up to the horrendous attack against a prominent African American community in Tulsa, Okla., are illuminated for teen readers in the year of its centennial anniversary, with a riveting and fearlessly written narrative by author Brandy Colbert (The Voting Booth; Little & Lion).
In the early hours of June 1, 1921, a mob of white people crossed over the tracks that separated the white and Black communities of Tulsa to enter an affluent Black neighborhood called the Greenwood District (known as America's Black Wall Street). The district was founded in 1906 by Black businessmen O.W. Gurley and J.B. Stradford, and by 1921 was home to "reportedly six hundred businesses within its thirty-five city blocks." The mob, armed with guns, fire, explosives, jealousy and resentment, destroyed the homes, businesses and lives of hundreds of Greenwood residents in a few short hours.
Black Birds in the Sky is thoroughly researched and includes firsthand accounts from survivors, photos and extensive backmatter. Colbert paints a clear picture of how and why this racial massacre occurred and encourages all readers, regardless of age or race, to confront the difficult and often obscured history of racial violence in the United States. After all, Colbert reminds readers in her excellent afterword, the U.S.'s brutal past is connected to Black Americans' present-day fight for justice: "None of this [is] new." --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer