Victor Luckerson to Receive 2025 Prairie Heritage Book Award!

The Prairie Heritage board has voted to award the 2025 Jan Garton Prairie Heritage Book Award to Victor Luckerson, for his magisterial work, Built from the Fire:  The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street.  One Hundred Yeaars in the Neighborhood that Refused to be Erased (NY: Random House, 2023).   Prairie Heritage President Jim Sands will present the $1000 award on March 27, 2025, at a major event featuring Mr. Luckerson.   Scheduled for the Opera House in Junction City, a reception with heavy hors d'oeuvres will start at 6 p.m., followed by a presentation by Mr. Luckerson at 7 p.m. and a discussion with the audience.   Mr. Luckerson will compare Greenwood's experiences with those of Junction City's own Black business district, the legendary East Ninth Street.   In addition to enduring a racist massacre in the 1920s, Greenwood faced "urban renewal" in the 1960s but was not destroyed by it, whereas East Ninth Street and all its businesses were eradicated in the 1970s, under the guise of "urban renewal."  The public is invited to this free event and is welcome to bring their own questions, observations, and memories of Ninth Street.    The Black History Trail of Geary County is adding East Ninth Street as a site on the Trail and is commissioning a mural to honor its numerous successful businesses and memorialize the distinctive life that once thrived there.