The Ground Breaking Quotes

“Because the decimation of the second, reborn Greenwood can also be laid at the feet of men and women who sat in air-conditioned offices and did their work with pencils and calculators, blue-line maps, real estate estimates, and government statistics. For the efforts to carve up the city's historic African American district had not ended with the attempted land grab for a new railroad terminal back in 1921. Now they had new names. Urban renewal. Redlining. Slum clearance. Model Cities. Opportunity. Progress.”
― Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice

“This was an unprecedented moment in American history as well. For the dead of the Tulsa massacre were hardly alone. Over the course of four centuries, thousands of African Americans had been the victims of murderous racism. Slaves had been shot, stabbed, and tortured to death, their bodies tossed in unmarked graves. Lynchings had claimed hundreds more, as Black men and women had their life force stolen from them beneath railroad trestles, telephone poles, and ancient oak and elm trees, their limbs creaking and swaying beneath the extra weight. And then there were the one who simply disappeared, into labor camps and county jail cells, or patches of wood and swamp, lit only by the pine knobs and kerosene lamps of their executioners. The victims of racism weren't few. They were legion.

But here, in this aging cemetery in the heart of the country, was the first time than an American government -- federal, state, or local -- had ever actively set out to locate the remains of victims of American racism.”
― Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice

“Because history isn't just a chronicle of events. Rather, it is a mirror of both who we are and who we want to be. For us to learn from the past, we have to look at and wrestle with all of it -- the sad and the ugly as well as the good and the great. And while we can't take credit for the accomplishments of previous generations, we can learn from their mistakes.”
― Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice

“But what George [Monroe] really gave me was a model of how to live. Though he had experienced a lifetime of tragedy, including burying his wife and two of his sons, that went far beyond the events of the riot, he was not consumed by hate, crippled by rage, or burdened by slf-pity. He had no shortage of strong opinions, but he also knew how to smile, how to laugh, and how not to take himself too seriously. He had worked hard all his life, yet had never found work to be a burden. His secret? 'Find out what you like to do,' he'd tell me, 'and do that. It's that simple.”
― Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice

“But what George [Monroe] really gave me was a model of how to live. Though he had experienced a lifetime of tragedy, including burying his wife and two of his sons, that went far beyond the events of the riot, he was not consumed by hate, crippled by rage, or burdened by self-pity. He had no shortage of strong opinions, but he also knew how to smile, how to laugh, and how not to take himself too seriously. He had worked hard all his life, yet had never found work to be a burden. His secret? 'Find out what you like to do,' he'd tell me, 'and do that. It's that simple.”
― Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice