Tulsa's new mayor backs ‘significant elements' of plan for city to do more over Tulsa Race Massacre
Tulsa's new mayor on Tuesday backed doing more for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and their descendants but stopped short of saying how he believes the city should further address one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.
Monroe Nichols, who in November was elected the first Black mayor of Oklahoma's second-largest city, said in a statement he supports 'significant elements' of a broad proposal dubbed Project Greenwood, named for the city's once-thriving Black district that was destroyed by a white mob.
The sweeping plan is pushed by survivors of the massacre and their descendants, who last year were rejected at the Oklahoma Supreme Court in their effort to force the city to make financial amends for one of the nation's worst single acts of violence against Black people. As many as 300 Black Tulsans were killed, and thousands of survivors were forced for a time into internment camps overseen by the National Guard.
The proposals in Project Greenwood include calls to financially compensate two 110-year-old women who are the last two known living survivors of the massacre. Other requests include funding a scholarship program for descendants of victims and making June 1 an official holiday.
'I look forward to implementing significant elements of the plan in partnership with Justice for Greenwood and other stakeholders,' Nichols said in a statement. 'In the coming weeks, I will share the framework my administration will use to heal the open wounds left by the Massacre and create a stronger, more unified Tulsa for all.'
A spokesperson said Nichols was not available for further comment.
In January, a report released by the Justice Department in the final days of the Biden administration determined there is no longer an avenue for criminal prosecution over the massacre.
Tulsa City Council members did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Brian Crain, an attorney and former state senator from Tulsa, said he supported memorials and funding for a cultural center in the Greenwood neighborhood. But he said garnering support from average Tulsans for other portions of the proposal will be difficult.
'Most of my conversations with other people in Tulsa don't involve discussions on cash payments for something that happened 100 years ago,' he said.
Other proposals in the plan include a preference program for descendants for city jobs and contracts; an exemption for descendants from paying city taxes or utilities; and a detailed audit of any land the city owns in the historic Greenwood district and how it was obtained.
Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, the last two survivors, did not attend a news conference in Tulsa urging the city to support the plan, which has been led by attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons.
It would be a tragedy, Solomon-Simmons said, 'for these two 110-year-old women to pass away with the justice that so rightly deserve.'
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