Vanessa Miller author of The Filling Station has crafted a novel based on the historic events surrounding the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Greenwood was a prosperous, self-sustaining community known as “Black Wall Street.” It was home to movie theatres, clothing stores, law and medical offices, banks and much more until it was completely destroyed by an angry mob of white men. Homes and businesses were burned to the ground, hundreds died and thousands were displaced.
The narrative focuses on sisters Margaret and Evelyn Justice, the daughters of Greenwood’s grocery store. It’s the eve of Evelyn’s high school graduation and Margaret has returned home from college with an offer to teach in the fall. Evelyn’s been accepted to a fashion design school in New York City.
When the violence begins the Justice girls’ world is upended. Their home is burnt; they left with only the clothes on their backs fleeing for their lives. Exhausted, hungry and afraid they walk for miles before arriving at the Threatt Filling Station, a black-owned business, where they’re taken in by the Threatt family.
The horrific actions and devastating loss are vividly described. Margaret and Evelyn deal with the loss in different ways with the older sister willing herself to find a way forward to rebuild what was taken; and Evelyn looks for ways to numb her pain.
Grief, hope, faith and love are among the many themes Miller weaves. The writing is occasionally stilted, but knowing the factual roots of the story is overwhelmingly powerful.
The Filling Station
3.75 bookmarks
Thomas Nelson, 2025
365 pages, includes Author’s notes, acknowledgements, discussion questions and sources.
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