The Ground Breaking

Now in paperback, the definitive, newsbreaking account of the reopened investigation into the Tulsa Race Massacre and its aftermath

In the late spring of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, erupted into perhaps the worst single incident of racial violence in all of American history. Referred to today as the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, it was an event of singular fury and devastation, during which a mob of white men and women reduced a prosperous African American community, known as Black Wall Street, to rubble, leaving countless dead and unaccounted for, and thousands of homes and businesses destroyed for good.

Now, one hundred years after that horrible day, Scott Ellsworth returns to his hometown in search of answers. But the investigation is not simply to find graves or bodies-it is a search to reckon with the darkest chapters of our country's history. Part true-crime murder mystery, part narrative history, The Ground Breaking weaves in and out of the distant past, recent history, and the modern day to tell a story of a city-and a nation-struggling to confront its greatest demons.