1921 Oklahoma Race Massacre: Tulsa's mayor proposed a private trust
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Tulsa's new mayor on Sunday proposed a $100 million private trust as part of a reparations plan to give descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacrescholarships and housing help in a city-backed bid to make amends for one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.
The plan by Mayor Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Oklahoma's second-largest city, would not provide direct cash payments to descendants or the last two centenarian survivors of the attack that killed as many as 300 Black people. He made the announcement at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the once-thriving district that was destroyed by a white mob.
Nichols said he does not use the term reparations, which he calls politically charged, characterizing his sweeping plan instead as a 'road to repair.'
'This is, I think, a very significant first step,' Nichols said. 'And it's something we can all unite around. I think we can unite around housing specifically for affected populations. I think we can unite around investing in the Greenwood district and making sure that we're able to revitalize it to be an economic power again.'
Nichols said the proposal would not require city council approval, although the council would need to authorize the transfer of any city property to the trust.
The private charitable trust would be created with a goal to secure $105 million in assets, with most of the funding either secured or committed by June 1, 2026. Although details of the trust programs would be developed over the next year by an executive director and a board of managers, the plan calls for the bulk of the funding, $60 million, to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing the city's north side.
'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' Nichols said. 'So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.'
Nichols' proposal comes on the heels of an executive order he signed earlier this year recognizing June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official holiday for the city.
Nichols also realizes the current national political climate, particularly President Trump's sweeping assault on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, provides challenging political crosswinds.
'The fact that this lines up with a broader national conversation is a tough environment,' Nichols admitted, 'but it doesn't change the work we have to do.'
Jacqueline Weary, is a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that were destroyed. She acknowledged the political difficulty of giving cash payments to descendants. But at the same time, she wondered how much of her family's wealth was lost as a result of the massacre.
'If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,' said Weary, 65. 'It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally taken away.'
Tulsa is not the first U.S. city to explore the idea of reparations. The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, was the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination, offering qualifying households $25,000 for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city. The funding for the program came from taxes on the sale of recreational marijuana.
Other communities and organizations that have considered providing reparations range from the state of California to cities like Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; and Iowa City, Iowa; religious denominations like the Episcopal Church; and prominent colleges like Georgetown University in Washington.
In Tulsa, there are only two living survivors of the Race Massacre, both of whom are 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher. Both received direct financial compensation from both a Tulsa-based nonprofitand a New York-based philanthropic organization, but have not received any recompense from the city or state.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the survivors and the founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, could not be reached for comment on the mayor's plan, but said earlier this year that any reparations plan should include direct payments to Randle and Fletcher and a victims' compensation fund for outstanding claims.
A lawsuit filed by Solomon-Simmons on behalf of the survivors was rejected by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial justice advocates' hopes that the city would ever make financial amends.
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