What Really Happened in 1921?
‘Flatbush Misdemeanors’ premieres Sunday
Caribbean Life, MAY 21-27, 2021 31
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Your legs felt as though
they were made of rubber.
It was like walking on a bed
of marbles, like wearing rollerskates
on a waterbed. Your
arms flailed for something
steady but whether this was
an inner event or something
outside, you wonder if you’ll
ever feel stable again. As in
the new book “The Ground
Breaking” by Scott Ellsworth,
you’re rattled.
In their last season without
responsibility, twelve-year-old
Scott Ellsworth and his buddies
spent the summer of 1966
exploring their hometown of
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and visiting
the library. There, Ellsworth
discovered hints that the whispers
he’d overheard his entire
life were true: there really was
a “race riot” in Tulsa decades
before his birth.
He tucked the information
away in his head. Later,
while researching the riot for
a possible college thesis, he
was confounded by missing
or destroyed documents and
reluctant witnesses.
It had started with a
scream.
On May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland,
a shoeshiner at a whiteowned
business, was heading
to a designated “colored”
restroom at the Drexel
Building; minutes after he
left, Sarah Page, the seventeen
year-old white elevator
operator there, screamed. The
reason was never determined,
Dick was blamed, Sarah
declined to press charges, and
the matter seemed to be settled.
But it wasn’t.
The incident festered in the
white community until, two
mornings later, after Dick’s
attempted lynching and just
before dawn, some of Tulsa’s
white citizens marched into
Greenwood, a suburb, and
began shooting. Thirty-six
hours later, more than a thousand
homes and businesses
Book cover of “The Ground Breaking: An American City
and Its Search for Justice” by Scott Ellsworth.
were destroyed and a still-unconfirmed
number of people,
mostly Black, lay dead.
And then, the story all
but disappeared. White Tulsans
wanted to forget. Black
Greenwoodians couldn’t, but
they didn’t discuss it – until
Ellsworth found a man who’d
been waiting decades to talk...
Reading “The Ground
Breaking” is going to leave
you wrung out.
But first, what may be a
surprise to readers is what
this book is not: it’s not a
hugely-detailed account of the
Tulsa race massacre. It’s part
of the story here, of course,
but it’s not the focus. You’ll
learn bits and snips of those
thirty-six hours from a century
ago, but only in support
of the rest of the tale.
Instead, what’ll keep your
nose in this book is multipronged.
It’s partly a memoir,
in which author Scott
Ellsworth shares the difficulty
of sleuthing out the truth,
why he was so tenacious, why
many people helped him, and
why others tried hard to stop
him. Together, this all reads
like a true-life mystery-thriller,
a feeling that’s bolstered by
Ellsworth’s totally-exhaustive
pursuit of information and
documentation (which is still
unnervingly unavailable) and
his relentlessly-dogged search
for the bodies of the dead. On
this latter, readers may still
feel a sense of the unfinished,
and closure is elusive here.
This is the kind of book
that, once you start it, makes
the hours disappear. It’s an
emotional one that’ll make
you skip dinner and lock the
door so you can just read. For
sure, “The Ground Breaking”
will shake you up.
“The Ground Breaking:
An American City and
Its Search for Justice” by
Scott Ellsworth
c.2021, Dutton
$28.00 / $37.00
Canada
336 pages
‘Ground Breaking’ author, Scott Ellsworth. Jared Lazarus
By Nelson A. King
Flatbush is taking centerstage
this weekend on Showtime,
with the premiering of
“Flatbush Misdemeanors,”
according to CBS News.
The television network said
on Tuesday that, “Flatbush
Misdemeanors,” the new series
from comedians Dan Perlman
and Kevin Iso, premieres this
Sunday, May 23, at 10:30 pm.
EST.
The comedy series follows
Dan and Kevin, as they struggle
to thrive in their new surroundings
of Flatbush, Brooklyn,
CBS said.
“Flatbush is a neighborhood
where the culture is super
rich,” Iso told CBS. “Brooklyn
is a borough, and Flatbush is a
neighborhood, and a lot of the
things in this show are specific
to Flatbush.
“It was great to cast a lot of
people from the neighborhood
to work on the show,” he added.
“You have a lot of people who
come here from the Caribbean,
and I hope people see the show
and see all the characters as
human beings and not a bunch
of stereotypes.”
Pelman noted that Flatbush
is “diverse in so many respects,”
adding that “it has had so many
different iterations.
“It’s such a Caribbean and
Black community,” he told
CBS. “It’s so historic and yet
not as represented. You’ve seen
the same streets in Manhattan
and in Williamsburg a million
times in a million different
shows.
“Flatbush is so diverse in
so many different ways, and
it lends itself to a show that
is organically diverse,” Pelman
added.
CBS said Perlman is from
New York, and Iso lived in Houston
before making his way to
the Big Apple.
“Flatbush Misdemeanors”
was originally a web series
before it was picked up by
Showtime and turned into a
half-hour comedy, CBS said.
It said that while both Perlman
and Iso hope the show
makes people laugh, they also
wanted to use their series to
address serious issues, like
police brutality and gentrification.
“It was definitely important
to hit stuff that felt relevant
and evergreen, without it feeling
so topical or referencing
one specific thing,” Perlman
told CBS. “You want people to
see it and relate, but you don’t
want it to be preachy.
“We wanted to hit these
issues organically in a way that
made sense for the characters
in a way that is not forced and
is still fun,” he added. “We
didn’t want to make anything a
caricature.”
“I think the show is pretty
funny and, overall, we wanted
to look at this idea that everyone
who commits a crime is a
bad person,” Iso said. “People
shouldn’t be vilified by society
and, hopefully, that message
comes across. If not, we tried.”
“Flatbush Misdemeanors”
premieres on @Showtime pic.
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