A School District Rejected a Black Author’s Book About Tulsa for Its Curriculum. Then the Community Decided to Act.

Randi Pink, author of the young adult fiction novel “The Angel of Greenwood,” talked to ContrabandCamp about how residents of a Pittsburgh suburb rallied around her book.

Courtesy of Randi Pink

Randi Pink’s book was at the center of controversy in a Pennsylvania school district for more than a year — a fight she wasn’t even aware of until recently.

Members of the Pine-Richland school board, which governs a mid-sized school district in the suburbs of northern Pittsburgh, voted against adding the Alabama-based author’s 2021 novel “Angel of Greenwood” to its ninth-grade curriculum in January during a heated meeting. But the fight had begun much earlier.

“The residents who reached out said that the district is almost 94% white and that they’ve had a lot of issues with book restrictions, censorship in the school library, especially the high school library,” said Pink, who lives in a small train depot town right outside of Birmingham. “I had no idea about this, but the teachers at this high school had been lobbying for ‘Angel of Greenwood’ to replace ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ on their curriculum for the ninth graders.

“It was a yearlong fight I had no idea about.”

Community members, already frustrated with the district’s book restrictions and censorship of the school libraries, pressed the board members to explain the reasoning behind its decision and shouted them down as the meeting went on for five hours. During the contentious meeting, Elissa Mitchell, Pine-Richland High School English teacher and department chair, was one of several speakers who pushed for the board to approve the novel.

“Angel of Greenwood” is a historical young adult fiction novel that centers on the love story of two teens living in the Tulsa neighborhood before the 1921 race massacre. Dissenting board members deemed the book not at a high enough literary level for high school students.

Pink vehemently rejected this premise.

This book “follows two 16-year-old Black protagonists walking the streets of historic Greenwood, post-Reconstruction, arguing how to move forward in their community, debating the philosophies of W.E.B. Du Bois and quoting the books of Booker T. Washington,” explained the YA fiction author, who flatly stated she is “unbothered” by some board members’ opinion of her book.

“[It] was written for teens to find out what the Greenwood District is, why it is important, and hopefully explore all of the secondary text mentioned within the primary text.”

“If three people on the school board in Pine-Richland believe the book is not advanced enough for ninth graders, that is their opinion. But this book has been taught in high schools all over the nation. It has been the subject of book clubs with 60- and 70-year-olds. I find that explanation to be disingenuous if I’m being honest,” she continued.

The Pine-Richland School District is predominantly white. “Pine-Richland, as an example, is an over 90% white community. A very beautiful and lovely community, but insulated. Everybody shops at the same grocery. Everybody goes to the same library, the same church, everyone has similar backgrounds,” Pink said.

Courtesy of Randi Pink

“But when the teachers who worked so hard for a year to deem ‘Angel of Greenwood’ a way in to introduce those students to the 1921 history of their country, too, that would've been a bridge into that bubble of a neighborhood. And if you burn the book, you burn that bridge,” she explained.

Students like Elise Duckworth, a junior at Pine-Richland High School, told WTAE that she couldn’t understand why “Angel of Greenwood” wasn’t implemented as a core text. As diversity, equity and inclusion efforts remain under attack from all sides, students need more exposure to historical stories and text to contextualize what’s happening in today’s world, not less.

After the school board voted against adding Pink’s book to the Pine-Richland School District’s ninth-grade curriculum, the community decided it was time to act.

Macmillan, the publisher of “Angel of Greenwood,” sent Pine-Richland students 100 copies of the book to distribute to the community. Pink also traveled from her small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama, to come to Richland to meet with the community that had so fiercely supported her work.

“The supporters in the community were relentless in making sure I got there. Some people put in $5, $10, even $600. I waived my fee, but the community said, ‘Absolutely not. We’re going to pay you.’ I’m a single mother, so I had to bring my babies with me,” she said. “They said, ‘we’re going to pay for all your way.’

“They galvanized around me. I support them very much for that.”

Students and parents raised nearly $6,000 for Pink to come to Pennsylvania, where the author held two talks — one for students of the school district to ask questions and the other was open to all community members.

Pink said she was initially nervous to come but was heartened by how the community rallied around her book. “I didn’t want to get my supporters in trouble by allowing me to come,” she said, with a laugh. “I know that might sound dystopian but that’s how I felt.”

But in the end, she was heartened to see how this community, one so unlike hers, had supported her. “This ugly five-hour school board meeting was a seed that grew into something really, really beautiful,” the author said.

“If more of us are brave enough to step into communities and say, ‘You know what? Let’s just talk. I think we will get a whole lot further like that in all aspects of society.”