Angel Of Greenwood

“The other fifteen boys chuckled at him, and that’s when the skinny boy lost himself in a fit of rage. He began pounding the crutches onto the rim of the Frisco tracks with as much force as he could muster. After a few minutes, they were shattered.

[…]

Isaiah watched them backing away from the Greenwood District, kicking up dust and rocks as they walked. Something sinister was in the air, Isaiah could feel it. Something was coming.”

This passage introduces the symbolism of the railroad tracks, which represent racial inequality and injustice, as demonstrated by the boy who uses the tracks to destroy the crutches. The determination of the white boy to destroy something of value to Angel—the crutches—is a metaphor for the white community’s determination to bring Greenwood to its knees through the massacre. This passage also introduces the symbolism of dust and dirt to stand for racial inequality and impending trouble.

“Du Bois spoke to Isaiah’s longing for an active role in the future of his people. Like Du Bois, he was tired of waiting for someone else to save him. Tired of pretending proper in front of ravenous white folks while they drained his community of its hard work and culture. Tired of waiting and watching like he had a few nights prior from behind that pitiful curtain. And tired, most of all, of anticipating the next attack. Everyone knew it was coming, sooner or later, maybe even to a community as idyllic as Greenwood.

Isaiah could feel it deep in his bones, and he knew that he was strong enough to meet it head-on.”

This passage summarizes Isaiah’s initial viewpoint on The Struggle for Justice and Equality. He prefers W. E. B. Du Bois’s approach to Booker T. Washington’s because it’s more active, direct, and speedy. He also sees an opportunity for leadership and courage in Du Bois’s activism, foreshadowing his role during and after the massacre.

“White boys could get away with an all-consuming kind of love. […] With no worry of looming revolution or invasion, they got to fall in love. […] It was […] for him, not allowed.

And then there he was. Walking to school, surrounded by the excellence of the formerly enslaved—the very demonstration of that type of powerful, perseverant love. Those who pulled themselves up to build and create and manufacture for the sake of community and family.”

This passage complicates Love and Friendship During Turbulent Times. Although Isaiah at first thinks he shouldn’t be “allowed” to be in love due to the political and social circumstances around him, he also can’t or won’t prevent the love from happening anyway. Moreover, the love between him and Angel is made possible by the community of Greenwood, far from being contrary to it.

“‘Nothing ever happens in the Greenwood District. If revolution comes, it doesn’t even need to come here. We’re Black folks governing Black folks. Minding our own damn business, just like them.’ Muggy pointed across the Frisco tracks to a small group of white teenagers leaning against a soda machine. ‘Long as we keep to ourselves, we could live like this forever.’”

Muggy and others in Greenwood believe the neighborhood is a special, safe community, exempt from the dangers of the outside world. This assumption is a common trope in horror, thriller, and mystery novels: A community is believed to be so safe that disaster would be impossible. In this novel, the notion of a safe community is complicated by the racial dynamics between Black Greenwood and nearby white Tulsa.

“The finest of restaurants, clothiers, grocers, hardware shops—all owned by families she knew. Walkways filled by tailored men with dainty ladies holding on to their right elbows. Black, brilliant, self-sustaining Greenwood Avenue was proof that Booker T. Washington was correct about tolerance and eventual progress. He’d called it ‘Negro Main Street,’ which was in all ways apropos.”

This passage develops The Struggle for Justice and Equality. Angel feels like Greenwood is proof that Booker T. Washington was correct that it’s possible to have a thriving, yet racially segregated, Black community. This belief is both ironic and bittersweet because Angel doesn’t yet realize that her community is about to be destroyed by the white neighbors. For now, she views Greenwood’s current success as a rationale for supporting Washington’s belief in incremental progress instead of Du Bois’s push for more rapid change.

“She did, however, question. When she stood staring at burgundy boxcars with golden swirls that she could never see on the inside, she questioned. The blaring injustices and inequalities she’d learned about in history class, the stories and warning from her father, the plight of her distant relatives. Angel was not naive; she certainly questioned. Never aloud, but on the quiet inside, doubt ran through her mind as quickly and as often as those fancy, untouchable trains ran along the Frisco tracks.”

This passage develops the symbolism of train tracks to represent racial inequality. When Angel sees the whites-only trains passing by on the tracks that separate the Black neighborhood from the white neighborhood, she can’t ignore the fact of racial segregation and how it seems to be intertwined with inequality despite what Booker T. Washington may have suggested.

“Isaiah was just a boy. A finicky one who’d been sucked into the delusions of W.E.B. Du Bois. Such foolishness, that! The test of time would show that Booker T. Washington’s strategy was the superior one. Sure, there were undoubtedly flaws in Washington’s argument, but it was the closest they had to real change in the entire community. Simple and easy to go down, it was.

Plow your own land. Pass along your methods to your children’s children. Allow the white man to live in what he thinks is luxury while cultivating a valuable life alongside. A life akin to Greenwood. Fight not! Instead, focus on that we can control—ourselves. And one day, just like the tortoise, we shall pass the overzealous hare.”

This passage further develops Angel’s perspective on The Struggle for Justice and Equality. She wants to avoid fighting, violence, and unrest, preferring instead a steady rate of measured progress, even if it takes longer. She believes Greenwood shows how effective this method is, illustrated through her allusion to the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

“‘That’s the guilt we’re feeling on the inside. It has nothing at all to do with the ability to plant and sow vegetables, or own thriving businesses, or even walk down the street without harassment. It’s the immaterial knowledge that we, Black people, can be even better than whites if we want to be. And furthermore, much to their dismay, we don’t need them to survive. Everyone should possess this knowledge, but the men who stayed in bondage didn’t.’

Thoughtful silence came over the kitchen, and pain crept in with it. No one won the Booker T. Washington versus W.E.B. Du Bois argument in that moment. Truth itself won. Truth that neither stolen innocence nor property outweighed stolen esteem for one’s own capabilities. That was the true travesty of slavery and, furthermore, the true triumph of Greenwood.”

Miss Ferris develops The Struggle for Justice and Equality by explaining that both Washington and Du Bois have both strengths and limitations. Also, she reminds the children that Black people can survive and thrive without needing anything from white people. Knowing this, they’ll be able to keep fighting for a better future no matter what. Miss Ferris’s words here anticipate Isaiah’s words at the novel’s end.

“Passing well-loved houses filled with well-loved families, he again wondered, why him? Why did he, a seventeen-year-old rascal, get to live in such a place? At least for the time being, he decided it didn’t matter why. What was important now was that he truly appreciated this rare opportunity. He would take his freedom of knowledge and spread it like wildfire to the rest of his people. Set their minds ablaze in the same way his was born free.”

Isaiah’s love for his community is bittersweet to the reader because it’s about to be destroyed. However, this does not mean that love is pointless. Instead, the love is even more important because, at the end, Isaiah channels it to inspire everyone to rebuild and heal their community.

“Books were an avenue, but not the only one. Angel wanted to introduce them to everything she loved about her own Greenwood, a couple dozen blocks away. […] This was her mission now. To reach these girls. But not only these: all Black girls, like Sojourner Truth did.

As Isaiah carefully discussed his interpretation of the book with the girls, Angel felt a tear quickly fall from her right eye. And then, through a blur, she saw ominous clouds suddenly form overhead. Teasing clouds with no condensation in them. These were the ones her papa had told her about. With these clouds came sirens.”

This passage develops Angel’s commitment to The Struggle for Justice and Equality. She wants to help all members of her community, especially those who she believes need it most, such as those without a formal education. This passage also further develops the symbolism of storm clouds to stand for impending trouble.

“Still, he, Angel, and his ma stood there getting drenched in the sudden downpour. They watched the soldiers, most of them in their twenties, marching along as if it weren’t raining at all. They’d surely been through worse, Isaiah thought.

[…]

Angel couldn’t imagine a more perfect day. Hot, yes, but no ominous clouds teasing any more rain or pesky winds kicking up dirt. It was as if the Lord himself commanded the earth to be still so that they may have an afternoon of joy.”

The rain at the Memorial Day parade further develops the symbolism of storm clouds to stand for impending trouble. After the rain lets up, Angel and Isaiah enjoy their time in the sun, which represents the calm before the storm. Isaiah and Angel enjoy this brief holiday respite to appreciate their community. Later, once it’s gone, they’ll be the ones inspiring others to help rebuild and heal it.

“While kissing him, there was only the two of them. Standing in the middle of idyllic Greenwood, surrounded by beauty and Blackness and excellence and kindness and gossip and loved ones and loss and hope for the future. They were produced by the dream of this place. The unlikely optimism of the enslaved. Brought over by force, funneled through country like cattle, paid for like resources. And then, dear God, there they were.

Two intelligent, passionate Black folk. Kissing freely in the middle of the street their own people owned. What a wonderful world it was.”

This passage develops Love and Friendship During Turbulent Times. Angel and Isaiah’s love is made possible by the goodness and success of their community, and their love makes both of them better. In turn, they’re able to appreciate and give back even more to their community.

“Yesterday, a white woman’s scream swung the atmosphere so far that I could not catch it. Her scream lit an already angry brew, fueling and feeding a starving mob whose hunger was not for food. Her scream echoed through newspapers, and living rooms, and up and down sidewalks until today—the thirty-first day of May in the hopeful year of 1921—when the brew has overflowed.”

This passage references the historical events leading up to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Although this passage does go into detail, the white woman’s scream in the elevator she shared with a Black man from Greenwood fed the angry mob of white men that ended up looting, burning, and murdering Greenwood.

“Angel looked at her father. He was smiling at her. His was a smile that could light up a dull room and bring joy back when there was none to speak of. The same smile she’d seen on every Sunday afternoon when her mother set his heaping plate of food in front of him. The exact same one Angel had seen when she sat.”

This passage complicates Love and Friendship During Turbulent Times. Even in the worst situation possible—faced with the threat of imminent death—Angel’s father makes a point of projecting love to his daughter, smiling the same way he used to during happy times. The joy on his face is what empowers Angel to obey his request to leave him behind and escape with her mother.

“‘What’s happening, Angel? Why are they doing this to us?’

Angel knew she had no time but couldn’t resist the urge to comfort her. ‘The why is of no importance here,’ Angel said, forcing a smile and placing a gentle palm over Michael’s sweaty forehead. ‘All that matters is that you get your little man to safety. That’s your only job, Mrs. Nichelle. The burning doesn’t matter. Not even Greenwood matters. You just survive to raise this little boy into a man so he can build a better Greenwood one day.’ Michael halted his sobbing and calmed as if accepting the charge.”

The burning of Greenwood changes Angel and Isaiah’s perspective on The Struggle for Justice and Equality. Now, having seen what a thriving Black community looks like, its destruction does not defeat or paralyze them. Instead, the fact that the community existed in the first place gives them hope that an even better version can be created in the future.

“The inferno around her had spiraled into utter confusion and terror. Lavalike, liquid heat dripped from dead streetlamps while shadowy figures, some holding children and elderly parents, scattered without instruction. Windows burst from the pressure of the flames, turning loving homes into what looked like fiery demons spitting their inhabitants into the streets. Within hours, her exquisite neighborhood had taken on the heat of hatred and been transformed into hell.”

The imagery in this passage is terrifying and hellish to illustrate the degree of damage being done to Greenwood. Although it was a lovely place before, it’s been transformed into something horrifying. The author presents the terrible destruction as it happened so that young readers can understand the scope of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the hate that motivated it.

“Hyperaware of her surroundings, she kept catching the enemy in her periphery. Peeking through bushes, congregating between burning houses, and some even walking down railroad tracks without care, grinning and pointing at the destruction they’d caused. How could they burn such a place? She thought between coughs. Du Bois was right. Isaiah was right. And her beloved Booker T. Washington was more wrong than she ever could’ve imagined.

There was no way to live peacefully alongside the foe. No building by one’s own bootstraps or rising from ashes. Washington had been guessing, just as she was about Mount Zion. Leading Black folks toward something he didn’t truly know existed, and watching the fire seep through every crack of Negro Wall Street, she instantly recognized he’d guessed wrong.”

Seeing the destruction of Greenwood, Angel realizes segregation is not really safe. Greenwood was not truly existing “peacefully” “alongside” the white part of Tulsa. Instead, it was vulnerable to attack because the white people in Tulsa resented the success of the Black neighborhood. However, after the attack, she regains hope that the community can still be rebuilt and healed.

“‘Not here,’ someone repeated over and over. ‘Not here. Not here. Not here.’

Isaiah wanted to turn around and tell them all to shut up their complaining. Of course here. If not Greenwood, where? It’s textbook. Stamp out the most prosperous among us, and the rest lose hope. Eliminate the talented tenth, and there you had it, eternal servitude. Did these people not read Du Bois?”

Like Muggy before, other residents during the massacre couldn’t believe that such a thing would happen in Greenwood, which they always considered to be safe and idyllic because of its segregation and separateness. Isaiah knows that Greenwood was a likely choice for a racialized attack because it’s home to some of the most prosperous Black people in the country.

“As she pumped, she thought of Truly, alone in the front yard. Truly’s little life flashed before her. There would be struggle. More than any child should ever have to endure. She would have to navigate this horrible world with only her tiny hands and not-yet-developed female body. A perfect target, she was. Without protection from men, she would be ravaged, and soon. Angel began to cry tears onto Mrs. Arnold’s still cheeks. This was Truly’s mother lying on the ground before her. The child’s singular hope for a life worth living.

‘Mrs. Arnold,’ Angel said as she pumped her chest as hard as she could. ‘I need you to come back from wherever you’ve gone. No time to dawdle; you’ve got a baby girl standing alone. A girl is never an easy thing to be, Mrs. Arnold, you know that. Especially a Black one. You, ma’am, need to walk away from the gates and come back here to raise up your Truly. If you don’t, she will be spit out.’”

This passage develops Love and Friendship During Turbulent Times. It’s even more important for Angel to save Truly’s mother because of the uncertain future she faces after the destruction. In these times, Truly will deeply need her mother to protect her and help her live her best life.

“Way off in the distance, she saw an airplane approach. Slowly circling, out of reach and range. She tilted her head as she watched it. To Angel, the airplane looked like a dirty bird circling its prey. It would be unheard of, an attack from the air. And Greenwood stood no chance against it.

[…]

Focusing her eyes, she saw the thing that the airplane was circling so meticulously. In the crosshairs, the shining bell tower with the gold cross that was shined weekly. The plane’s likely target—Mount Zion Baptist Church.”

The circling airplane echoes the recurring symbolism of ominous clouds to represent trouble coming soon. The plane doesn’t look ominous at first, but it catches Angel’s attention, and she realizes it’s there to attack their church. Because her father told Angel to watch the clouds for clues, she is attentive to the sky, which allows her to notice the plane and warn everyone in the church, thereby saving their lives.

“In that moment, he felt more connected to Greenwood than ever before. Not because he was wealthy or well-off, but because he was in the trenches with them. All of them, from the Mothers to the smallest of children. He stood watching them as they fluttered around one another. Even in the face of destruction, the ingenuity, the kinship of Greenwood folks reigned. And finally, he was a part of it.”

This passage illustrates Love and Friendship During Turbulent Times because, when things get rough, Muggy steps up his commitment to his community. This passage also illustrates Resilience in the Face of Racial Violence because Muggy marvels at Greenwood’s ability to work together and support each other through this tragedy. In the moments before his death, he is proud to be a part of a community as loving and strong as Greenwood.

“‘You will not interrupt what that boy’s doing up there,’ he told Isaiah with so much force he nearly fell backward. ‘He’s made up his mind to ransom what’s left of his time to save the multitude. No greater love than that.’”

Mr. Morris prevents Isaiah from stopping Muggy from ringing the church bell to wake up townspeople who are still sleeping. By doing this, Muggy sacrifices his life to save others because the church is about to be bombed by a plane. Still, everyone allows Muggy to do this because they realize it gives him the redemption he needs, in addition to saving others’ lives.

“‘Every family represented here is a light of knowing,’ he said with as much might as he could build from his gut. ‘This, my friends, is more important by leagues than any brick and mortar. This, men, cannot be burned away from us. You see? It was not our homes or our businesses that the white men were trying to steal away that fateful night. No, it was the knowing they saw building up within our bodies. The posture elevating our shoulders back to neutral. Back, friends, to where they’d been before they pushed us on boats and brought us here.

‘Booker T. Washington once said that “one man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.” This is dead to rights but unfinished. What Washington left unsaid is, sooner or later, the focus of the held-down man eventually shifts. Through battle, his arms lean and develop muscles strong enough to propel him out, leaving his captor there alone to rot in his cage.’”

Isaiah chooses to quote Booker T. Washington, not W. E. B. Du Bois, in his speech about rebuilding and healing Greenwood. This choice illustrates how he has expanded his viewpoint about The Struggle for Justice and Equality to be more layered and complex. At the core of his speech is, once again, the importance of knowledge, faith, and hope over physical objects and even bodies. The white mob couldn't steal knowledge, faith, or hope from Greenwood, so the residents can still use these to rebuild and heal their community.