Let It Bang

A story of race, guns, and self-protection in America today, through the quest--funny and searing--of a young black man learning to shoot a handgun better than a white person

Longlisted for the Reading the West Book Awards NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work - Non-Fiction With journalistic skill, heart, and hope, Requiem for the Massacre reckons with the tension in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one hundred years after the most infamous act of racial violence in American history More than one hundred years ago, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, perpetrated a massacre against its Black residents. For generations, the true story was ignored, covered up, and diminished by those in power and in a position to preserve the status quo. Blending memoir and immersive journalism, RJ Young shows how, today, Tulsa combats its racist past while remaining all too tolerant of racial injustice. Requiem for the Massacre is a cultural excavation of Tulsa one hundred years after one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Young focuses on unearthing the narrative surrounding previously all-Black Greenwood district while challenging an apocryphal narrative that includes so-called Black Wall Street, Booker T. Washington, and Black exceptionalism. Young provides a firsthand account of the centennial events commemorating Tulsa's darkest day as the city attempts to reckon with its self-image, commercialization of its atrocity, and the aftermath of the massacre that shows how things have changed and how they have stayed woefully the same. As Tulsa and the United States head into the next one hundred years, Young’s own reflections thread together the stories of a community and a nation trying to heal and trying to hope.

Veteran prizefighter Michael Dane believes he’s on top of the world. He’s had a star-crossed career and life, with plenty of wins in the ring and an eighteen-month stint in prison. As the number-one contender for the IBF Light-Heavyweight Championship, he’s training to go up against Quin Cortez, the undefeated champion, in a title fight in Las Vegas. Michael’s drug-running manager, Dante Alexander, has driven his career, making no friends along the way. Now, after a tense meeting with Dante, Michael is rethinking his choices as a man and as a professional fighter. Worse, he’s doing all he can to stay one step ahead of the treacherous men who would exploit him for their own gains. With nowhere else to turn and few people he can really trust, Michael turns to his former trainer for advice, Terence “Dutch” Masters, who raised him like a son. His former girlfriend Selena, now several months pregnant with his child, represents a life he has never known. Now Michael must do what it takes to keep everyone in his life safe from Dante. With his old trainer in his corner for one more fight, his old flame back in his life, and rival gangsters on both sides, can Michael get out with the title ... and his life?