Reconstructing the Dreamland
Subtitle: the Tulsa riot of 1921 : race, reparations, and reconcilation
By: Alfred L. Brophy.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Format: Cloth
Number of pages: 187
Subjects: African Americans -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- History -- 20th century; African American neighborhoods -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- History -- 20th century; Riots -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- History -- 20th century; Violence -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- History -- 20th century; African Americans -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- Claims; Racism -- Oklahoma -- Tulsa -- History -- 20th century; Tulsa (Okla.) -- Race relations
Description: "The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot was the country's bloodiest civil disturbance of the century. With perhaps 150 dead, 30 city blocks burned to the ground, and more than a thousand families homeless, the riot represented an unprecedented breakdown of the rule of law. It left the prosperous black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma reduced to rubble.".

"In Reconstructing the Dreamland, Alfred Brophy draws on his own extensive research into contemporary accounts and court documents to chronicle this devastating riot, showing how and why the rule of law quickly eroded. Brophy offers a gut-wrenching portrait of mob violence and racism run amok, both on the night of the riot and the morning after, when a coordinated sunrise attack, accompanied by airplanes, stormed through Greenwood, torching and looting the community.

Equallty important, he shows how the city government and police not only permitted the looting, shootings, and burning of Greenwood, but actively participated in it. The police department, fearing that Greenwood was erupting into a "negro uprising" (which Brophy shows was not the case), deputized white citizens haphazardly, gave out guns and badges with little background check, or sent men to hardware stores to arm themselves.

Likewise, the Tulsa-based units of the National Guard acted unconstitutionally, arresting every black resident they could find, leaving Greenwood property vulnerable to the white mob, special deputies, and police that followed behind and burned it."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 176-182) and index.