Victor Luckerson Lecture

Luckerson's new nonfiction book Built From the Fire (Random House, May 2023) dives deep into the causes and repercussions of the race massacre, one of the worst acts of racial violence in United States history. The book also celebrates the tenacity and resilience of Greenwood's residents, who survived racial terror, urban renewal, and gentrification over the course of a century. Spanning 118 years of Greenwood history as it follows several families who survived the massacre, Built From the Fire is a blend of boots-on-the-ground journalism, academic research, and literary narrative. The New York Times called the book "absorbing," while the Washington Post praised it as an exceptional and thoroughly researched account of a "multifaceted community that refuses to be silenced."  

 

Victor Luckerson is a journalist who has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Smithsonian magazine. He moved to Tulsa in 2019 to tell the story of Greenwood from the perspective of race massacre survivors and descendants. His text brings to life more than 100 North Tulsa residents, past and present, and draws on thousands of primary-source documents from his archival research. Luckerson will share brand new research about the history of Tulsa's Greenwood District and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.