RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewAbsorbing ... Luckerson... adeptly takes us through Greenwood’s history, resisting the impulse to glorify its founders or endorse the idea that more Black-owned businesses can repair the ravages of racial capitalism ... By the end of Luckerson’s outstanding book, the idea of building something new from the ashes of what has been destroyed becomes comprehensible, even hopeful.
Julian Rubinstein
PositiveThe New York Time Book Review... rich research and extensive reporting ... It’s clear that Rubinstein tried to be sensitive to the relationships he built with Roberts and his sources, but at times his ideas about the Holly from his upbringing spill into his prose ... He acknowledges the racism of the police and the unjust economic structures that shape the Holly and other local institutions, but occasionally he ends up reinforcing the notion of the Holly as somehow other than the rest of Denver ... Throughout his book, he uses the word \'invisible\' to mean neglected or ignored, but in doing so he fails to confront what exactly is not being seen and why and by whom...For the gentrifying whites who began moving into the areas surrounding the Holly in the early 2000s, Black people are not invisible at all. In fact, their visibility causes their new white neighbors to appeal for more policing. Indifference and invisibility are not one and the same ... by exposing the state surveillance, the crooked policing, the structural racism, the broken promises and the poverty that had plagued the Holly for decades, he helps us realize that the problem of violence is far greater than two men and one gun.
