Black Birds In The Sky Summary

The book I read was called Black Birds in the Sky. The book is about the Tulsa Race massacre or the Black Wall Street massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 31 to June 1, 1921. The book mostly talks about events that led up to the massacre, such as racial discrimination between whites and blacks and even indians. It also talks about how major black events and people get covered up more than the white events do while teaching history in school. This also helps show that the blacks are still getting unequal treatment now and how it hasn't gotten much better. There is also a big portion of the book that talks about how the Greenwood and Tulsa Oklahoma came to be before the race riot broke out. We then get a few chapters telling us how the race riot started on that day and what happened in those 18 hours during the massacre. On May …show more content…
This caught people's attention and after that Rowland ran away. A few hours later, Page accused Rowland of rape and he became a wanted man and later got arrested. He was sent to a jail cell at the top of a building and was heavily guarded due to past events, having mobs of white people go and seek their own justice of the criminals and lynch them. A newspaper later posted where Rowland was and this led to the white mobs rising up. While this was happening, black groups were going to that exact jail armed with guns to help protect Rowland along with the police to prevent anymore lynchings. When the white mob got there they got very mad and though the blacks were uprising this caused chaos to ensue and make whites grab their own weapons and attack any and all blacks they could find.The white mob even went into the Greenwood District which is an all black town to ensue this chaos and set the black people in their place. The police didn't try to stop the white mob but instead arrested the blacks for their “safety”. The massacre ended at 8pm on June 1,