Oct. 23, 2024
Unveiling Black Wall Street with Victor Luckerson: Resilience, Collaborative Writing, and Mentorship in Uncovering Untold Narratives
What if the hidden stories of Black Wall Street could change your understanding of American history? This episode of Ready Set Collaborate features an extraordinary guest, Victor Luckerson, a journalist and author who has dedicated his career to uncovering these untold narratives. Victor guides us through his inspiring journey from being the second Black editor of his college newspaper in Alabama to his relocation to Tulsa, where he penned "Built from the Fire." This powerful multi-generational saga sheds light on the resilience and unity of the Black community in Tulsa, offering personal anecdotes that fuel his passionate storytelling.
We also unpack the vital importance of collaboration in the writing world. Victor shares his insights on the significance of having a supportive network and the role of mentorship in nurturing budding writers and journalists. From mentoring Black students at the University of Alabama to guiding his young cousin through the complexities of Black history, Victor offers a wealth of experience and encouragement. Looking forward, he reveals his ambitious plans for "Run it Back," a newsletter aimed at uncovering untold Black history to serve as an educational tool. Tune in for an episode filled with rich history, personal stories, and the powerful impact of community and collaboration.
Connect with Victor Luckerson
Newsletter - https://runitback.substack.com/
Website - https://www.vicluckerson.com/
Built from the Fire Book on Amazon -
Stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. Subscribe - Follow and Like Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson
Chapters
00:00 - Exploring Black Wall Street History
08:31 - Rebuilding Black Wall Street Together
18:27 - Fostering Collaboration in Writing and Mentorship
Transcript
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Welcome to Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Rhonda Pearson, where we will dive deep into the world of networking, collaboration and partnership, unlocking the secrets to a successful team working within innovation.
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Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creative professional or just someone eager to understand the power of networking and collaboration, this podcast is your go-to resource.
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Join us as we explore the stories, strategies and insights from experts, entrepreneurs and thought leaders who have experienced the magic of networking and collaboration to achieve successful results.
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Tune in to Ready.
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Set Collaborate podcast on a journey towards achieving your goals with host Wanda Pearson.
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Welcome.
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Welcome to the Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Wanda Pearson.
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I am so excited to have my next guest on Victor Lucasen, and I have to say that I am proud to be his cousin, because he's a famous guy out here, so say hi to the audience, victor.
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Hey, wanda, thanks for having me.
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I'm proud to be your cousin.
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I actually got my reunion t-shirt on right now.
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We have a reunion every year and that's right, I have my t-shirt.
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Yes, I had my zone yesterday.
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Okay, yes, we do.
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We have to keep that reunion, that bond that's in there, because life is too short.
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We got to really do things to see each other and get to know each other and get to know our kids and our families and our girlfriends, and all of that.
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Oh yeah, no doubt.
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Yeah, yeah, it's good to have you here.
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Thank you so much for having you.
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I'm happy to have you with us here.
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Oh yeah, happy to be here.
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Yes, yes, I'm going to talk a little bit about your bio, then you can add a little bit more about yourself, okay, and let the audience know what you're doing and how your book is.
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I got your book.
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I tell you it's amazing.
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It's amazing.
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All right, victor Lucasen is a journalist and author based in Tulsa who works to district.
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From the fire is a multi-generational saga of a community in Tulsa's Black Wall Street that, in one century, survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, urban Renewal and Genification.
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The book was named one of the 100 notable books of the year by the New York Times and one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the year by the Washington Post.
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Hey guys, we got somebody famous here now.
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Victor is also a former staff writer at the Ringer the business reporter for Time magazine.
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His writing and research have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, wired and Smithsonian, the New York Times, wired and Smithsonian Wow.
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He was nominated for a National Magazine Award for his reporting in time on the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.
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He also manages an email newsletter about underexplored aspects of Black history called Run it Back.
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Without further ado, victor, thank you for being on our show.
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Just tell us a little bit about yourself, as far as not what I said here, but what else you have done.
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Yeah, so I've been a writer from jump.
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I'm from Montgomery, alabama, and I remember being four or five years old as a kid playing on my parents' typewriter or we had one of those old PCs before Windows with MS-DOS, the black screen, so I'm really trying to write stories on that and, of course, in notebooks and all that kind of stuff.
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I've really been writing since I can even remember, to be honest with you, and when I went to college at the University of Alabama, that's when I realized that journalism could be able to continue to write, but it tells stories about real people that could have an impact.
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And so at the University of Alabama I joined the school newspaper.
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I became the second black editor ever of the school newspaper, the Crimson White school newspaper.
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I became the second black editor ever of the school newspaper, the Crimson White.
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That was a really interesting time to be able to write about issues that were unfolding in a place that was predominantly white and also had a lot of varied history.
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Alabama has a lot of stories, tough stories, involving race and its history.
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I got to explore some of those topics when I was the editor of the school newspaper.
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I went from that experience to becoming a technology and business reporter in New York City.
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I worked for Time Magazine covering Facebook, google, apple all those companies I know you in the tech field have that background.
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I was covering that field for several years, visited Silicon Valley, a lot, all that kind of stuff but my passion was really always trying to tell stories about Black history and Black folks, and so while I was a business reporter, I actually pitched a story about Black Wall Street to one of my editors and got to visit Tulsa in 2018.
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When I visited for that first time and I saw not only that there was a very rich history there, but also that the history itself had been buried.
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If you go to Tulsa today, to Greenwood, you'll see there's a baseball stadium over the side of the race massacre.
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You see there's been a lot of gentrification.
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There's also still a lot of folks from that neighborhood, from that community, who really carry the history inside their souls.
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I really decided that it made a lot of sense for me to put the business aspect aside and go back to that history writing.
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I actually ended up quitting my job in 2019.
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I made a Black Country Music playlist and I packed up my life and moved out west to Tulsa.
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I'm still living there right now, but working on this project for the last several years and very excited that I was able to come out last year, built from the fire and got a very warm reception not only from people around the country but also from people right here in Greenwood.
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It's been a really great experience.
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That's awesome and I remember, victor.
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When you just left us in Atlanta, we didn't even know you had disappeared.
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It's like at least you could have said goodbye, victor.
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I'm sorry, I was a man on a mission.
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I apologize though.
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Yes, you did, I tell you.
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But I'm so proud of you going on that mission and being able to share this story because I really never knew about Black Wall Street.
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You taught me something about that.
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I didn't know what was going on Me being from Chicago, I didn't know a lot of this stuff that was going on.
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I really appreciate you sharing that.
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And also, you actually go from state to state city to talk about your journey there.
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And I remember you coming to Atlanta and you brought some of the people that were in Tulsa and what was the oldest young I say young lady oldest young lady that you told her story about.
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What was her name?
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Yeah, her name is Joanne, ms Joanne Guilford.
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In my book Built from the Fire I actually follow one specific family who has been on Black Walks for the entire time.
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They were there when the race massacre happened.
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They rebuilt their lives.
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They're still there.
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They own a Black newspaper.
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Folks from that family, the Goodwin family they were actually part of this event I did in Atlanta last fall.
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The eldest living member of their family, miss Joanne.
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She's 90 years old, so she was born just a few years after the race massacre.
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She remembers the Great Depression.
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She remembers World War II, all the events we think of as being history books.
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She remembers all that stuff and specifically she remembers how those were if you were Black.
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We learn about those things in school but we don't learn about what it's like in the Great Depression if you were Black, world War II if you were Black.
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And I think her being able to bring that history forward is really important for me because my book Built from the Fire yes, it covers the race massacre, but it's also about what happened after the race massacre.
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What is Greenwood like in the 30s, 40s, 50s, what is it like today?
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Having folks like Ms Joanne able to bring that story true to life was really valuable and it was really awesome to be able to have her be part of that presentation we did in Atlanta last year.
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Yeah, it really was, and some of the other people that was on the stage who was on the stage during that time.
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Yeah, so it's been in Atlanta.
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It really was about trying to highlight the folks who really are from that community I am.
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This podcast is about collaboration.
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I'm not from Tulsa, I'm not from Greenwood and I think when you're moving in a space like that that suffered a really serious trauma you have to be really careful about making sure that you're not exploiting people or just taking from them.
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But it's always been really important for me to elevate the folks who really tell them the true story from their lived experience.
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So on the stage with me we had, at this event in Atlanta last year, greg Goodwin.
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Greg is Mr Williams in Atlanta last year.
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Greg Goodwin Greg is Ms Joanne's nephew.
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He's in the next generation of descendants from the race massacre.
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He's actually a baseball coach in Atlanta, so he was there with us.
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And then also Nehemiah Frank, who was a young journalist about my age.
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He actually owns a Black-owned news outlet called the Black Wall Street Times in Tulsa and he's also a massacre descendant himself.
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These are folks who actually lived that experience across.
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That's, three different generations of folks from Ms Joanne to Greg to Nehemiah all descended from this event get different perspectives on it.
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For me it was really important to make sure that when I go out talking about this stuff it's not people just seeing me, victor the historian talking about it from some level of remove, but you get that perspective of folks who really lived it all of it.
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Exactly this is great.
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So I want to ask you a question.
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I think you probably already touched on it, but why you chose to write about greenwood?
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Just give us a little bit more about why you chose to write.
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Yeah, so this is back in my atlanta days, when I was um being a hermit, um yeah, you were a hermit but one day one of my high school friends from Montgomery came to visit in Atlanta and we were having this right outside my apartment in Grant Park and the film Torbjorn Slave came up.
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My friend had not seen that movie.
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He didn't want to see the movie because he was tired of only seeing black was being brutalized and all these historical depictions.
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If you think about the kind of movie they make about black history, we usually either slaves or maybe civil rights movement, we we get sick by dogs and that's about it.
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I asked my friend have you ever heard of Black Wall Street, example of us being successful?
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My friend had never heard of it.
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This is before the Washington TV show came out, before President Trump came, before President Biden came, all that stuff, so it was still unknown at the time.
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My friend he's a Black entrepreneur himself he had never heard of Black Wall Street.
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I felt like for me as a young Black writer, it made sense to try to tell a story that was going to really give us a positive example of our own history.
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That was really my motivation, really to try to tell that story about Black success and solidarity.
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Yes, the massacre is a big part of the story, but it's not the only thing that defines Greenwood.
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I think my book kind of highlights that there's so much more to this place than just those two days of destruction.
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Absolutely, and that explains it more because, like I said, I never really heard of Black Wall Street.
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You taught me a little bit more about it and I love what you said about collaboration, because that's what this podcast is about.
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It's about collaborating and how Black people collaborate to build Black Wall Street.
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Tell us about that, and I know you said some of the people that was on the stage with you and you traveled with them.
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Yeah, in terms of the history itself, greenwood was really built on collaboration.
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It was this place where Black folks thought they could have a better shot at prosperity compared to living in the Deep South.
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A lot of ambitious Black folks from Alabama, georgia, mississippi, they all traveled out west to Oklahoma trying to seek a better life for themselves and they really had to work together, I think, to build that life.
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One story I'd like to tell is about the building of Mount Zion Baptist Church.
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Mount Zion, which is still standing today, was the biggest church in Greenwood 75,000 bricks, a massive sanctuary.
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It's a beautiful structure that was being built in the 1910s and there was no way any one person was going to have the bank account for that.
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They had to collaborate to build this church.
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But you had folks in the neighborhood who would be doing cookouts or whatnot, trying to get money for it.
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The choirs would sing on the streets of downtown Tulsa to raise money and obviously you had folks doing tithing and all that kind of thing too.
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And all this effort.
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This woman named Mabel Little, who I talk about a lot in the book she was actually one of the biggest, probably the most, religious person in Greenwood.
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She was one of the folks who was saying we got to do whatever we can to raise money for this space, and so it was really quite a success to have these folks build this amazing church.
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Maple Little was actually at the church itself on May 31st 1921, when the mob descended on the neighborhood.
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Actually, and when you think about the story of Greenwood, it's about collaboration happening, oftentimes, destruction following it, and then having to find a way to strategize or pivot after the destruction.
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I think that's one example of a really positive collaboration that occurred.
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And then in terms of that church itself, mount zion, it was destroyed during the race massacre.
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If anybody listens, has seen any of the documentaries about greenwood, sometimes you see this big church on fire.
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That's mount zion, but mabel little and a lot of the other congregants.
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They kept raising money afterwards to rebuild it.
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It took them almost 30 years.
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It was 1950 when they finished rebuilding that church, but they were able to raise enough money to rebuild.
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They laid the corners on 1950 and it's still standing today.
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I mean that's a great story about collaboration.
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Even in the midst of the worst possible calamities, we can still find ways to build with each other.
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Uh, no matter, no matter the cost I love it because I was going to ask you is it hasn't been rebuilt there?
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oh, yeah, yeah, people go to church at church every sunday.
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Now I've been in there.
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I've been in there several times that's awesome and that's really about how black people work together to rebuild after the massacre.
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That was one of the things that they did as far as the church.
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What else did they rebuild, working together?
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Yeah.
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So I think that church aspect was a big thing.
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Another big aspect of the collaboration post-massacre was not selling out to some of the white real estate men who really wanted the land.
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If you think about how it all played out, there was a white woman who falsely accused a black man of attempted rape and that is the event.
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That sort of set off all the destruction.
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However, after the massacre, these white real estate guys were trying to buy all the land of Greenwood.
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Greenwood is right next to downtown Tulsa.
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It's a place where they wanted to build, like a train depot, an industrial site.
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They were doing the first round of gentrification way, way back then.
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However, the black leaders, the black journalists and property owners.
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They collaborated and said we're not going to sell out.
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And I think about this quote from a elementary school teacher from Greenwood.
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This has happened a couple of weeks after the race massacre, the whole neighborhood's burned out.
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They had one church left standing, but they had this meeting and this man, jwu, said I'm going to hold what I have until I get what I lost.
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They really took that mentality to heart.
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They actually refused all these overtures and efforts to buy them out for a penny on the dollar, all this kind of stuff.
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And because they were able to withstand that barrage from the white real estate folks, they were able to maintain Greenwood In the years to come.
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Greenwood actually was rebuilt.
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There are actually more hotels, businesses and properties in the neighborhood in the 30s, 40s and 50s than they had been before the race massacre.
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But that would not have happened if those folks had not collaborated and stuck together and said we're not going to sell out, we're going to find a way to rebuild what we had for ourselves.
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Absolutely, and they stood strong to be able to do that.
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You know, for the legacy of it what happened during that time and for the legacy for their children to say this is what happened then.
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But this is, and it's great that you were able to really write about this story, Victor, and for you to go and live in it for two years and really to talk to the people that act like Miss Joanne, to talk to the families about what really happened, instead of you guessing or going through your history.
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It's always good to hear from them out exactly what they went through, and we talked a little bit about what's going on with Greenwood now.
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Is there anything else you want to add with that?
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What's happening now?
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Yeah, I think a couple of things people should be aware of.
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It's the issue of reparations, which is obviously a big national issue.
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It's especially pertinent in Greenwood.
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There are still two living survivors of the race massacre A woman named Biela Fletcher is 110 years old and a woman named Leslie Bennifer-Rando, also 110 years old.
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I have an opportunity to meet these women.
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They're still very strong and spry and they'll joke with you and all that.
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They have a lot of life and vibrancy in them, but they've been denied justice many times.
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There's been a reparations lawsuit kicking around in the courts in Oklahoma for the last several years, filed by these two women, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court just dismissed the lawsuit earlier this summer.
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They're appealing that case right now, but it's a pretty tough case that they're facing.
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This issue of reparations is still very much alive in Tulsa, and the other thing I wanted to mention on this front is there's been an effort actually in Tulsa which is, I think, pretty inspiring, to get rid of the interstate highway in Greenwood.
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So in Greenwood, like a lot of other Black neighborhoods in the 50s, 60s and 70s, these interstates came through and took out a lot of the land, displaced homeowners and business owners, and I remember I came to Tulsa.
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You see that highway.
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I guess that's what we're going to do about that.
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How are you going to move that much concrete and steel and all that?
00:15:51.794 --> 00:15:56.796
But the Biden administration actually in about 2021, passed a in the infrastructure act they passed.
00:15:56.796 --> 00:16:00.854
They included more than a billion dollars to actually remove these interstates from black neighborhoods.
00:16:00.854 --> 00:16:04.130
Tulsa actually got a grant to study removing the highway Right now.
00:16:04.130 --> 00:16:07.751
They're having these meetings in Tulsa right now talking about what can we do put there instead.
00:16:07.751 --> 00:16:11.841
Could it be communally owned land, lower middle income housing?
00:16:11.841 --> 00:16:13.692
Could it be for local businesses?
00:16:13.692 --> 00:16:17.682
What could it be that that be more productive and positive for the Greenwood community?
00:16:17.682 --> 00:16:23.934
I'm very hopeful about that being a way to undo some of the wrongs that were done, because the wrongs are not just about the race mask.
00:16:23.934 --> 00:16:30.798
It's also about this urban renewal, urban planning that's really destructive to Black neighborhoods Again, not only in Tulsa but around the United States.
00:16:31.629 --> 00:16:32.131
That's awesome.
00:16:32.131 --> 00:16:34.863
That's awesome, I love it, not only in Tulsa, but around the United States.
00:16:34.863 --> 00:16:35.907
That's awesome.
00:16:35.907 --> 00:16:36.428
That's awesome.
00:16:36.428 --> 00:16:36.649
I love it.
00:16:36.649 --> 00:16:46.309
And how you're saying how politics played a part in it to make sure that the wrong people get their restoration, as far as what happened with their families and to God, I'm just thinking about these ladies at 110 years old it's amazing.
00:16:46.309 --> 00:16:51.863
They've seen a lot in this world and how it has progressed to see where we come today.
00:16:51.863 --> 00:16:53.735
So thank you for sharing it.
00:16:53.735 --> 00:16:58.638
I appreciate that that's awesome and I'm praying that everything continues to grow.
00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:04.358
Oh yeah, and that Tulsa is like an example of what can happen in this world to make things better.
00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:06.323
Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so.
00:17:06.323 --> 00:17:15.387
There's a lot of folks here still now trying to push for justice and providing models for other places too, because it's one of those things where, if you can't get justice in Tulsa for what happened, where can you get it?
00:17:15.387 --> 00:17:21.375
It's an egregious example of what can happen wrong with racism in America, so you gotta be able to get it here, I think.
00:17:21.616 --> 00:17:29.849
Absolutely, and you took that chance by going to Tulsa and being able to tell the story and it really is quite intriguing.
00:17:29.849 --> 00:17:34.820
So I know you can get your book on Amazon as well as order from you.
00:17:34.820 --> 00:17:36.393
But as well as what is it?
00:17:36.492 --> 00:17:41.291
it's at Barnes and Noble as well, and books a million yeah, and also at most local bookstores.
00:17:41.471 --> 00:17:47.355
It's pretty widely available, I would say yes, and audible too, because I got it on also kindle.
00:17:47.395 --> 00:17:48.137
It's an ebook too.
00:17:48.137 --> 00:17:54.060
Any way, you want to listen to it, read it however you want to, how you, however you want to consume the information I got got you, that's right.
00:17:54.101 --> 00:17:54.501
That's right.
00:17:54.501 --> 00:17:59.412
So, yeah, I got it on Audible, but I got my own book because I had to make sure that he actually autographed it for me.
00:17:59.412 --> 00:18:01.696
I said, I know this guy, this is my cousin.
00:18:01.696 --> 00:18:02.699
This is awesome.
00:18:02.699 --> 00:18:05.912
So one more question I want to ask you.
00:18:05.912 --> 00:18:11.182
So the challenges of working as a staff writer versus being freelance tell us about that.
00:18:12.484 --> 00:18:17.886
Yes, I had a normal nine to five job for several years as a professional journalist until I'd started on this book.
00:18:17.886 --> 00:18:19.451
I actually quit my job to work on this book.
00:18:19.451 --> 00:18:21.467
That was a really big leap of faith.
00:18:21.467 --> 00:18:24.241
I wasn't that far off getting kicked out of my parents' insurance.
00:18:24.241 --> 00:18:25.547
Actually, I was pretty young when I started this.
00:18:25.547 --> 00:18:26.890
I got to even figure out stuff like that.
00:18:27.592 --> 00:18:31.787
I think I realized that you have to find collaboration in different ways.
00:18:31.787 --> 00:18:41.474
When you're independent we work in a news organization it's kind of collaboration built in You're going to be working with designers and copy editors, all these folks kind of day to day, and you have a team with you.
00:18:41.474 --> 00:18:49.401
When you're independent, it's a lot harder, I think, to both to get what you need professionally but also like spiritually a little bit.
00:18:49.401 --> 00:18:50.061
It's very lonely.
00:18:54.525 --> 00:18:56.653
I think for me, a couple of things that really helped in terms of collaboration was having a writing buddy.
00:18:56.653 --> 00:18:57.616
Especially when I was in Atlanta, I had a writer.
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