Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre
Reviewed by Sandy Hall
The story of this event should be told and remembered by new generations. We must learn from the past. I’m always amazed at the actual connection people of today have with events from 100 years ago. My dear husband’s grandmother was delivered by a Civil War doctor! To think we have a link to someone of the 1860s is amazing! In this book, the illustrator Floyd Cooper learned of this event from a grandparent who lived through it. I think because of that, he so well drew the illustrations. It was part of his own heritage. And he explains more in the Illustrator’s Note as the end of the book. Yes, the book narrates that awful time, but it also ends with hope as it tells about Tulsa’s Reconciliation Park which remembers the victims as a place “to realize the responsibility we all have to reject hatred and violence and to instead choose hope.” The book includes an Author’s Note in which Weatherford tells of her own connection to the trauma of racism in her cousin’s life and other family members of her ancestry. Knowing these things led her to research the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and to tell the story. And to further your understanding of this event and help your children learn, Download the free educator guide here: https://lernerbooks.com/download/unspeakableteachingguide

Read the full review on Hall's Living Library