In the early summer of 1921, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a shining example of Black achievement and ambition in America. Nicknamed “Black Wall Street,” it was a thriving community of entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, bankers, and business owners. At a time when Jim Crow laws sought to crush African American progress, Greenwood was living proof that prosperity, dignity, and self-determination could flourish against the odds.

Then came the night of May 31, 1921. Sparked by a false accusation against a young Black man, a white mob gathered outside the Tulsa courthouse. Fueled by hatred and emboldened by indifference from local officials, the violence spilled into Greenwood. Over the next 24 hours, white vigilantes looted businesses, burned homes, and shot residents in cold blood. Eyewitnesses reported private aircraft dropping incendiaries from above, turning the neighborhood into a war zone.

By dawn on June 1, 35 square blocks lay in ashes. Churches, schools, libraries, restaurants, banks, and homes — the infrastructure of an entire community — were systematically destroyed. As many as 300 people were killed, and thousands were left homeless. Survivors were marched into internment camps. Those who had built Greenwood from the ground up were silenced, their property stolen, their legacy erased.

For decades, the truth was buried. Local newspapers omitted the story. Textbooks ignored it. Survivors were threatened into silence. America’s “Black Wall Street” became a ghost of memory, hidden beneath rubble, lies, and shame. The massacre was mislabeled as a “riot,” shifting blame onto the victims instead of exposing the perpetrators.

Red Summer: The Tulsa Race Massacre shines a flashlight into this dark corner of history — exposing the rocks under which the cockroaches of racial hatred crawled. Drawing on survivor accounts, recently uncovered records, and modern investigations into mass graves, this book reconstructs not only the horror of the massacre but also the brilliance of what was destroyed. It reminds us that Greenwood was not defined by its destruction, but by the boldness of its vision: a self-sufficient Black community that dared to dream in a nation stacked against it.

This is not simply a history of tragedy. It is a story of erasure and rediscovery. It is about how power sought to silence a people — and how memory fights back. In an era when issues of race, justice, and truth remain at the center of America’s national conversation, Tulsa matters more than ever.

Raw, unflinching, and urgent, Red Summer is both a warning and a testament. It is a reckoning with the violence that scarred America, and an honoring of the resilience of those who endured. To read this story is to confront not only what happened in Tulsa but what America still struggles to face: that progress is fragile, justice is unfinished, and history, no matter how buried, will not stay silent forever.