Tulsa Speaks

Kristal Brent Zook is an award-winning journalist and professor of journalism at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and author of four previous books, including The Girl in the Yellow Poncho. She is a former contributor to The Washington Post and ESSENCE magazine, and her work on race, women, culture, and social justice has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Life, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

"Kristal Brent Zook is one of our most gifted and astute observers of the American scene. Her riveting Tulsa Speaks is a bracing look at what happens when inspired but fallible human beings set out to remedy past racial catastrophes. Eschewing both easy cynicism and glib optimism, Zook instead offers a resilient hopefulness about the possibility that local figures can achieve the kind of progress that eludes national lawmakers and public policy wonks. This brilliant book is history from the bottom up, and an illuminating chronicle of social change one political decision at a time." - Michael Eric Dyson, author of Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America"Tulsa Speaks is a no-nonsense account of how government actually functions at the municipal level. By looking at the lives of nine city council members and how they grappled with the legacy of their city's greatest tragedy, Kristal Brent Zook has provided us with an indelible, street-level portrait of racial politics in twenty-first-century America." - Scott Ellsworth, author of The Ground Breaking: The Tulsa Race Massacre and an American City's Search for Justice"We tend to forget about the unknown names behind so many decisions in cities and towns across America. Award-winning journalist Kristal Brent Zook gets inside the hearts and minds of real, living, breathing city councilors to uncover their pain and their triumphs as they try to decide whether or not to make amends for one of the most significant acts of domestic terrorism in our history, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre." - Tatsha Robertson, editor in chief, The Root"Reading Tulsa Speaks was like coming home. I grew up in the city that emerged from the ashes of the 1921 massacre, and I left after high school, never to return as a resident, because I felt the city was not ready to address its past. The book brilliantly—through deep and personal portraits of today's diverse yet divided city council—shows that while the city has not changed in many ways, it has also progressed light-years. Tulsa Speaks is an insightful look at the fits and starts of the place I left behind and its promise. If Tulsa becomes the kind of city I always wanted it to be, Tulsa Speaks will show us how it happened." - Roy S. Johnson, Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary"This powerful narrative illustrates the challenges and possibilities for achieving racial reconciliation and justice in the United States." - Meena Bose, author of Pragmatic Vision: Obama and the Enactment of the Affordable Care Act"Tulsa Speaks astutely zooms in on rich and complex local place-based Tulsa history. It then zooms out to narrate an even more complex national story of the role of municipal bodies in racial inequalities and racial repair. Tulsa is having a cultural moment, and Kristal Brent Zook's careful storytelling is a crucial accompaniment to our understanding of what has led to—and how to digest—this moment." - Michelle Janning, Raymond and Elsie DeBurgh Chair of Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Whitman College"It's tough to imagine that the seeds of solving our current problems with political division in America might be found in a town that was home to one of the worst race-based massacres in history. But Kristal Brent Zook's Tulsa Speaks makes that case with powerful prose and incisive reporting. Tulsa Speaks tells a complex story, and ultimately a hopeful one. Because if Tulsa can find a way to make progress given its bloody past, then there's hope for communities across America." - Eric Deggans, Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University"Tulsa Speaks brilliantly takes us inside a city council's struggle to atone for one of America's most horrifying racial atrocities. Kristal Brent Zook has produced a gem of a book, careful and rigorously reported, that ultimately reveals the courage, fears, and vulnerabilities of human beings." - Kevin Merida, former executive editor of the Los Angeles Times"With nuance and insightful storytelling, Kristal Brent Zook explains why documented historical harm does not automatically lead to accountability. By examining the actions and deliberations of the Tulsa City Council, the book thoughtfully shows how fear of risk, liability, and precedent can delay or prevent reparative action, even when responsibility is clear and publicly recognized." - Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, chair of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force

• Introduction 1 Not a "Huggy" Person 2 Madam Councilor 3 More Than a Friend 4 The Secret Meetings 5 An Apology6 The Family Business 7 Brady Street8 A Centennial Fiasco9 A Tense Vote10 Three Councilors Request Extra Security11 Beyond Apologies12 An Unlikely (Possible) Ally13 Beyond Apologies, Part II 14 The Wild Card15 Tulsa Makes History16 What Comes NextAcknowledgmentsIndex