The Greenwood neighborhood of North Tulsa was once a promised land for African Americans, deemed “Black Wall Street.” But on May 31, 1921, the deadliest race massacre in U.S. history sent Greenwood up in flames. At the time, Lessie Randle was just a child running to safety as bullets ricocheted around her. Almost a century later, lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons knocks on her door asking if she’d be willing to run toward justice this time.
In Redeem a Nation, we follow Solomon-Simmons’s fight for justice, from the courtrooms of Tulsa to our nation’s capital, representing three centenarians: the last survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Documenting a race against the calendar and the courts, Redeem a Nation grapples with the truth about corruption and disenfranchisement in the United States through this historic legal case for reparations and the deeply moving stories of survivors and descendants of the Massacre.
Yet this isn’t just a story of Tulsa. The community is a microcosm of the continued harm the United States inflicts through racial violence and economic injustice. The damage of generational poverty and loss of opportunity isn’t some relic of the past. It is happening right now. Redeem a Nation offers a way forward for communities across the nation through systemic change and community love. The time is now to resist, repair, and redeem a land once promised.
“You think we can win?” Randle asked that day. This story is Solomon-Simmons’s answer. [Adapted from publishers’ description.]
ISBN: 9780593874585 | Storehouse Voices
Praise
How we recover from centuries of slavery, racial terrorism, violence, and codified racial hierarchy remains one of the central questions in American life. Solomon-Simmons’s extraordinary lawyering, activism, and engagement on how we repair harms long unaddressed is at the forefront of urgent and critical issues in this country . . . An American story we cannot ignore. —Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy
In Redeem a Nation, Solomon-Simmons lays out a path toward justice with power, love, and dignity. — Resmaa Menakem, New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands
Redeem a Nation is a true-crime story, an epic tale about a heroic pursuit of justice, and a history of the unpaid debt this nation has evaded for more than a century. It’s a tale as old as America. But in this version, Damario Solomon-Simmons is the debt collector, and he actually brings all the receipts. — Michael Harriot, New York Times bestselling author of Black AF History
Weaving together Solomon-Sommons’s Tulsa childhood, the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, and the modern-day legal battle to finally grant reparations for victims, this book is a powerful, riveting read for anyone interested in better understanding the legacy of anti-Black racism in this country and the effort for justice . . . finally coming to fruition. — Areva Martin, Esq., award-winning civil rights attorney
Solomon-Simmons passionately exposes and perfectly articulates the divide between our present system and a truly just society making it clear that reparations are not just economic redress but a manifestation of justice in its purest form. —Reverend Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network
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