For decades, a riot that killed three hundred people and wounded hundreds of others was scarcely heard of. But several new studies have focused attention on Tulsa's Greenwood race riot of 1921. In "If We Must Die" novelist Pat Carr turns that tragedy into a riveting novel.
When Berneen O'Brien's mother dies, the seventeen-year-old moves from Wyoming to Tulsa to live with her stern uncle. Berneen secures a teaching position at Liberty Elementary School. When she meets the principal, Nelson Flowers, she is amazed to find that he is a black man. Slowly, as she meets the other teachers,...