Center for Public Secrets

TOMORROW! Preorder a first edition copy of LRC’s Tulsa, check out new merch, and hang out with us! See you there. 🤝

April 26th 11am-2pm
OSU Tulsa Main Hall by the library

Find us at the LitFest Book Fair and lock in your copy of Lee Roy Chapman’s Tulsa. Fewer than 100 first editions remain.

Preorder now through the link in our bio, or order yours in person this Sunday.
Out this summer.

Tomorrow, March 31st, Is Lee Roy Chapmans birthday! Help us honor his legacy by getting “Lee Roy Chapman’s Tulsa” published! This is a book that tells the truth about Tulsa. From racial violence and political corruption to the poets and punks who have always fought against it.
🔥 Make history. Help us publish this book:
centerforpublicsecrets.org/support

Public Secrets: Northside House from Larry Clark’s “Tulsa”:

A similar exterior shot of this house is featured in Larry Clark’s 1971 photobook Tulsa. Located in the Cherokee Heights division at 121 North Utica, the house once belonged to David Roper, whose image is a constant throughout the book. According to a neighbor, Roper lived in the house until the early 1980s and is still living in the Tulsa are,a working as a door-to-door fruit salesman. This re-photo was taken in September of 2010.

📸 & words by: Lee Roy Chapman

“The Pioneers’ monument is not commonly known or visited. The Tulsa Association of Pioneers itself no longer exists. Instead, the beliefs and ideals of that group were carried on in Tulsa’s school system, local politics, and business world.” -Monumental Malice author

The first name on the monument is Dr. Sam Kennedy. After the fires that burned Greenwood leveled the historic Black community to an ash grid Dr. Sam Kennedy hosted a barbecue on his nearby land with high ranking klan members, fellow city founders, and more who fit both titles.

continues…

“The eastern edge of Dr. Sam Kennedy’s former farm is roughly half a mile from North Detroit Ave, commonly held to be the westernmost frontier of Black Tulsa. If Dr. Kennedy had been on his property the day of the massacre he might have seen the fires rising from the burning Greenwood.

He would have smelled the smoke and accelerants used by the White mobs to destroy the most prosperous Black neighborhood in America. He would have heard the hateful shouting of the destroyers and the cries of the victims. He would have known what kind of town he had helped build.

Three months later, while many Black Tulsans were preparing to spend the winter in tent cities, Kennedy threw his “Old Timers” barbecue on his farm.”

Read more about the names carved in stone on the Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument at the 🔗 in our bio.

Lee Roy was the kind of guy who'd hang a history lesson on a light pole. He loved the weirdos, the poets, the prophets in the dive bars. “Lee Roy Chapman’s Tulsa” book shines a spotlight on Tulsa's counterculture legacy—music, art, film, rebellion. The subversive genius of Larry Clark to the quiet politics of Bob Wills, Leon Russell and S.E. Hinton’s worldwide reach, and the singular worldviews of Ga***rd Herron and James Brainard, and so much more. 🔥Help us publish this cultural timebomb:
centerforpublicsecrets.org/support

Lee Roy chased a history most people never knew, then found a way to make you care. A cultural insurgent. A ghost-hunter. A truth-teller with a sharp pen and sharper instincts. Now, we have gathered his essays, his art, his personal archives, alongside photos by Western Doughty into one book. “Lee Roy Chapman’s Tulsa” is a visual and literary journey through the city’s violent history, art, and music, with rare glimpses into Lee Roy’s own life.

📕 He believed the city's stories were worth saving. Help us preserve this version of Tulsa—“Lee Roy Chapman's Tulsa." Chip in: centerforpublicsecrets.org/support