That the newspaper the Oklahoma Eagle exists at all is a miracle. That it needed to be born was a tragedy.

The original paper for Tulsa’s African-American community was the Tulsa Star, but during the so-called Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, whites bombed the the Star’s offices into oblivion. The Eagle, like the phoenix, arose from the ashes to replace the defunct Star, and in 1936, E. L. Goodwin bought it. I interviewed his son, current owner Jim Goodwin, who joked that “the paper owns me.”