Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

This is young adult nonfiction at its best. Comprehensive and compelling, researched with care, and recounted with compassion for the victims, Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre should be required reading in all high school history classes. Brandy Colbert brings together the diverse threads of U.S. history, from Reconstruction to the Trail of Tears, from the racist roots of police-as-slave-catchers to white resentment against Black WWI veterans and the Black middle class, to portray the interconnected causes and horrifying events of an undeniably American atrocity.