Reading Built From the Fire All Across Tulsa

Introducing Deep Greenwood: A Built From the Fire Community Read

When people who have read Built From the Fire tell me, “I felt like I was there,” I know I achieved what I wanted to with this work. History often feels so distant, even though, as I’ve written in the past, it’s not hard to see ourselves in the trials and triumphs of our ancestors. Closing the gap between past and present opens our minds to the possibility for change. The world was not always like this, history insists, but the people of those earlier eras were not so different from us. We risk repeating their gravest mistakes, but we can also draw strength from their ability to overcome. 

I want to help people get a little closer to that past in ways that extend beyond the pages of my book. So I’m excited to reveal the project I’ve been cooking up this summer: a city-wide book read of Built From the Fire here in Tulsa, anchored by five community events over the next nine months. 

We’re calling the series Deep Greenwood–a term longtime North Tulsa residents use to refer to the historic business district at the heart of Greenwood. Each event will be going deep on a different part of the neighborhood’s history, and every gathering will be anchored by a set of chapters in Built From the Fire. Topics will range from the origins of racial violence in Tulsa to Greenwood’s thriving nightlife scene to the future of ambitious efforts like removing the Crosstown Expressway from the neighborhood. The format of the events will also be varied. Expect photo exhibits, poetry readings and live music in addition to traditional book talks. In Built From the Fire, I tried to strengthen the bonds between Greenwood’s past, present, and future, to give people more insight into how those bonds have been built; I hope these events can do the same. 

Whether you live in Tulsa or not, you can follow Deep Greenwood’s progress by checking out our new website for the series. There you’ll find a reading calendar with suggestions on how to pace your way through Built From the Fire. We’ve also created a landing page for each event that includes key passages from the book and additional sources to widen your knowledge of the topic at hand. Check out the full schedule of events below:

Thank you so much to all the organizations who have agreed to host events in the Deep Greenwood series: All Souls Unitarian Church, the Historic Big 10 Ballroom, the Oklahoma State University-Tulsa Library, the University of Tulsa’s Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and the Rudisill Regional Library in the Tulsa City-County Library system.

And thanks to the additional sponsors for the series who are helping get the word out and get books in Tulsans’ hands: The Black Wall Street Times, Fulton Street Books, Magic City Books, North Tulsa Unity Book Club, The Oklahoma Eagle, and PEN America. 

The series kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 28 at All Souls Unitarian Church at 6:30 p.m. Whether you’ve had a chance to crack the book open yet or not, I hope to see you there. Thank you for continuing to care about this story.