Built from the Fire

“In a kaleidoscope of colorful details and moving moments, journalist Victor Luckerson profiles the people who built ‘Black Wall Street’ and then lost nearly all to a violent, racially motivated attack. Built from the Fire confronts the devastation of the Tulsa race massacre while tracing the recovery and repair effort that continues. While insisting that the Greenwood community kept their ‘own ledger’ of an atrocity city and state leaders overlooked for far too long, Luckerson has created his own compelling ledger in this sensitively rendered account of a family and community that persists.”

--Tiya Miles, National Book Award-winning author of All That She Carried

“Built From The Fire is a deeply researched chronicle of Tulsa’s extraordinary African American community through decades of triumph and tragedy, heartbreak and determination. But, more importantly, in telling the story of the life and times of the remarkable Goodwin clan, Victor Luckerson has provided us with a true American family saga.”

--Scott Ellsworth, author of The Ground Breaking: The Tulsa Race Massacre and an American City’s Search for Justice

"Built from the Fire tells a powerful story of African American resiliency and 'hopeful anger.' Of believing so much in the American dream and the promise of this nation despite slavery, despite the betrayal of Reconstruction, despite the terror that obliterated the achievements of multiple generations of Black people, of rebuilding from that devastation under the chokehold of Jim Crow, to the faded promises of civil rights, to the resurgence of the anti-Black right-wing. And all along African Americans believing in and knowing the strength of the community in sustaining that which racism has tried repeatedly to destroy. The scope, the elegance, and the power of Luckerson's tale is simply breathtaking and empowering."

--Carol Anderson, author of White Rage

“A vital book… An ambitious chronicle of a racially motivated atrocity that still resonates today… [Victor Luckerson] brings his considerable journalistic sensibilities to this sweeping and intimate portrait of racial violence, empowerment, and social action… Luckerson's exhaustive research and interviewing yield an evocative tale related through the sagas of several prominent Greenwood families and massacre survivors—most notably, the Goodwin family, the longest-surviving Greenwood family and caretakers of the invaluable newspaper the Oklahoma Eagle, which becomes another character in the story. Luckerson's well-documented history of the arrivals, struggles, and triumphs of Black Tulsa prior to the massacre is invaluable, particularly his accounts of the development and promise of Tulsa as a whole and of Greenwood's phoenixlike emergence from the ashes… Luckerson adeptly describes the century-long economic, political, and psychological consequences of the massacre, and he clearly demonstrates how those consequences inform contemporary debates in Tulsa, the Oklahoma state legislature, and the nation concerning restitution, police brutality and accountability, and the social responsibility of citizens and businesses, Black and White alike.”

—Kirkus Reviews, *starred review!*

“In the tradition of the great reporting of Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Sons, Victor Luckerson describes in gripping detail the events surrounding the Tulsa Massacre in a way never before seen. He carefully chronicles a tale of tragedy and resilience; of lives destroyed and the miraculous will to rebuild. Built From The Fire demonstrates how wealth is stripped away from black families whether at the hands of lawless white citizens, law enforcement personnel, or elected officials. It is also the story of black hope and the belief in the possibility of a brighter tomorrow.”

—Dorothy A. Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth

“By burrowing deep into the stalwart Goodwin family—survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre—Victor Luckerson has produced a dynamic, and propulsive, chronicle of that episode in American history. Given the tenor of our present times, this is truly a necessary book. And one that marks the exciting arrival of a new literary talent.”

—Wil Haygood, author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films In A White World

“Victor Luckerson does something more important than just recounting the history of a city, he shows how narratives—in the media, in our communities, and in our minds—affect our perception of what a city can be, and who cities are for. By dissecting the way we've all internalized the racial and economic structures that guide city-making (and city-destruction), Luckerson offers us hope that we can build communities that support us all.”

—P.E. Moskowitz, author of How to Kill a City