Dreamland Burning

“I understand now that history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again.”

Because the book begins with Rowan preparing to talk to the District Attorney, her comment sums up the lesson she learns. The Tulsa riots of 1921 are a piece of erased history, so no one was allowed to learn from them. Racial violence is an ongoing cycle throughout US history. Rowan must challenge the legal system to make a change and move toward ending the cycle.

“It never did cross my narrow little mind that I should worry about Clarence Banks, or be bothered by the fact that I’d just unleashed the full force and fury of Tulsa’s crooked police element on a Negro.”

Will’s fury at Clarence is largely about jealousy because Clarence is with the girl Will loves. Will is also privileged. His naivete, which no member of the black community shares, is what gets Clarence killed. To Will, the police are there to protect citizens and uphold the law. To Clarence, the police are dangerous.

“I’m guessing whoever killed this guy wasn’t interested in bragging about it. They wanted him erased, like he never even existed.”

When Rowan says this about the skeleton, she assumes a white supremacist killed a black person as if he were nothing. Even after the truth is revealed, her observation proves correct. Will wasn’t proud of killing Vernon Fish, even though Vernon was violent, dangerous, and needed to be removed from society. The anonymous burial was poetic justice for all of the African Americans Vernon murdered and left to rot anonymously.