Tulsa Announces Reparations for the 1921 ‘Black Wall Street' Massacre

Yomiuri Shimbun

2 days ago

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
Women and children wait in line for malaria medication at a health center in Nametil, Mozambique, in 2023.
The city of Tulsa, home to one of the most horrifying racial-terror massacres in U.S. history and the people who tried to cover it up, has announced a $105 million reparations package that will put dollars and actions toward redress.
'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history,' Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols said in a speech Sunday announcing the reparations package, which will pump millions into the restoration of families and communities that had their trajectories derailed by the 1921 attack.
'We have worked to recognize and remember, but now it's time to restore,' Nichols said.
It was something that families of survivors and victims have been waiting generations to hear.
'This marks a historic moment where the city of Tulsa is not just acknowledging past harm, but taking real steps toward repair,' said Kristi Williams, a justice activist in Tulsa and a descendant of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
It took decades of research by historians and journalists – and reports and investigations by state and federal commissions – to uncover the violence that claimed more than 300 Black lives, torched at least 1,100 Black homes, led to survivors being put into displacement camps and decimated the prosperous enclave of Greenwood, known as 'Black Wall Street.'
More than a riot, 'the massacre was the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood,' according to a news release that accompanied a Justice Department report issued in January.
'The Tulsa Race Massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,' Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in the news release.
Reparations for historical injustices have been studied and talked about for years as Americans reckon with the cruelties of the past and how they reverberate in society today. Legislators in D.C., Maryland and California have considered ways to right the societal inequities that resulted, but with little success.
In 1994, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) signed a $2.1 million compensation bill for the Rosewood massacre of 1923. Nine survivors received $150,000 each. A state university scholarship fund was established for the families of Rosewood survivors and their descendants.
In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became one of the first U.S. cities to pay reparations to Black residents.
It's complicated to put a monetary value on cruelty and the opportunities it devoured. But the Tulsa case provides clear examples of families and businesses that were impacted, as well as voices that can outline their visions of justice.
The reparations will be powered by the charitable Greenwood Trust and built with private capital. The target is to spend $24 million in investments for affordable housing and homeownership; $60 million for historic preservation; and $21 million in scholarships, small business grants and to continue identifying the victims of the massacre buried in mass graves, according to Nichols's plan.
'The Department of Justice's report, while laying out the undeniable facts of the massacre, does seem to suggest that justice – in the context of the massacre – will always be acquainted with an asterisk,' Nichols said.
The plan addresses that lingering question of justice, some of the families said.
'We're grateful for the community that shaped these recommendations, and we're ready for the work ahead,' Williams said. 'One of the strongest demands we heard from the community was housing. That's why we recommended $24 million for home repairs and down payments because repair without investment is just rhetoric. The mayor's support shows that Tulsa is ready to do more than talk.'
The plan tries to replace the post-catastrophe mechanisms, such as lawsuits and insurance claims, that usually kick in to help victims recover.
None of the thousands of White Tulsans who took part were ever arrested; no insurance claims covering the torched businesses were paid out; the suspected attackers are all dead; and the statute of limitations has expired, Nichols said.
'Every promise made by elected officials to help rebuild Greenwood at the time was broken,' he said.
The survivors haven't let the city forget.
'For generations, Greenwood descendants and advocates of Black and North Tulsans have kept the flame of justice lit,' said Greg Robinson II, a member of the 'Beyond Apology' task force for reparations.
Nichols, Tulsa's first Black mayor, made it a priority.
'The Greenwood community has waited over a century for meaningful repair,' Tulsa City Council member Vanessa Hall-Harper said. 'Our call for $24 million in housing reparations is a direct response to the generational theft of Black wealth that began in 1921 and continued through redlining, urban renewal, and neglect. This moment reflects what is possible when leadership listens to the people, and I am proud that we have a mayor who has done just that.'
The attack was sparked in an elevator on May 30, 1921, when a shoeshiner named Dick Rowland stepped into an open wire-caged elevator operated by a 17-year-old White girl named Sarah Page.
Witnesses said that Page screamed when the door opened and that Rowland fled. The Tulsa Tribune had a headline the next day that said, 'Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator,' and Rowland was arrested.
Decades later, most historians believe Rowland may have stepped on Page's foot or bumped into her. The charges were dropped, and Page later wrote a letter exonerating him. But simmering racial hatred and the incendiary headline sent a White mob to the Tulsa Courthouse where Rowland was being held.
That was a common pattern across America. Newspapers regularly reported on hundreds of lynchings that happened after a Black man was arrested – usually on flimsy charges – and a mob overtook the jail, dragged the prisoner out and executed him.
But the murderous search for vengeance in Tulsa went beyond a single person.
Black World War I veterans who heard the calls to lynch Rowland went to the courthouse to protect him. They clashed with the mob, and a shot was fired.
In less than 24 hours, as many as 10,000 White Tulsa residents, many of whom had recently drilled as part of an organized, militaristic 'Home Guard,' arrived and systematically destroyed the 35 blocks of Greenwood, according to the federal investigation.
Witnesses reported that planes dropped turpentine bombs on the burning city.
Greenwood had been a uniquely prosperous Black community, with 'a nationally renowned entrepreneurial center – a city within a city where places like the Dreamland Theatre, the Stradford Hotel, grocery stores and doctor's offices flourished,' Nichols said. 'At the same time, churches provided the foundation of faith needed to thrive in a segregated society.'
All of it was decimated.
'Personal belongings and household goods had been removed from many homes and piled in the streets,' the Tulsa Daily World said on June 2, 1921. 'On the steps of the few houses that remained sat feeble and gray Negro men and women and occasionally a small child. The look in their eyes was one of dejection and supplication. Judging from their attitude, it was not of material consequence to them whether they lived or died. Harmless themselves, they apparently could not conceive the brutality and fiendishness of men who would deliberately set fire to the homes of their friends and neighbors and just as deliberately shoot them down in their tracks.'
The massacre was covered up.
Former Oklahoma state representative Don Ross said he had never heard about it until he was about 15 and one of his teachers, a survivor, described it in class.
'More annoyed than bored, I leaped from my chair and spoke: 'Greenwood was never burned. Ain't no 300 people dead. We're too old for fairy tales',' Ross wrote in the state's 2001 report on the massacre. His teacher set him straight.
Tulsa finally apologized for its role in the massacre in 2021.
Two of the last known survivors, Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle, sued for reparations. The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed their case last year.
The announcement of the reparations plan restored hope that the city has a commitment to move past the horror.
'June 1, 2025 was the culmination of that commitment,' Williams said. 'Tulsa has finally committed to moving beyond apology to justice.'