Happy Black History Month! Last week, I read Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Floyd Cooper. This nonfiction picture book first describes the community of Black people who lived in Tulsa's Greenwood district leading up to the massacre. The story then reaches the turning point when a 17-year-old white elevator operator accused a 19-year-old Black shoeshine man of assault. After a confrontation outside the jail between thirty armed Black men and two thousand armed white men left twelve dead, the white mob attacked the Greenwood community, destroying homes and businesses, murdering up to three hundred Black people, and injuring hundreds more. Some Black Tulsans left, while others stayed to rebuild the community, but the massacre wasn't spoken about for decades afterwards and it took seventy-five years for there to be an investigation into the violence and destruction.
This picture book was very enlightening. I had heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre before, but it was never an event I studied in great detail in school. It made me sad and angry learning what happened to such a thriving Black community. It was also disturbing how quickly the violence escalated after the man accused of assault was put in jail, especially when the white mob decided to spread rumors about the Black community attacking. Unspeakable definitely made it evident that the some of the white people in Tulsa hated the success of Black people in Greenwood, but the violence was so unbelievably senseless. I thought the illustrations were beautiful, though, and my favorite was at the end, seeing a group of people at Tulsa's Reconciliation Park. It added a spark of hope after reading about such a horrific event. I enjoyed the poetic nature of the Weatherford's storytelling, too. I think everyone should read Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre because this tragedy is one of the worst incidents of racial violence in US history.
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