Latest news with #RaceMassacre
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
'Black Wall Street' reparations plan unveiled by Tulsa mayor
"The pursuit for better defines greatness - a people that will look back 104 years and dare to be better - dare to come together to face a complicated past and commit to each other for a better future," Nichols said in a speech Sunday. Along with the trust, Nichols announced the release of 45,000 historic documents related to the massacre. "For us as a city, we want to model that we are a partner that wants to foster a level of trust with this entire community," Nichols, the first Black mayor of Tulsa, told USA TODAY in an interview Monday, June 2. "The massacre has always loomed as an event that really isn't rooted in a lot of trust over the years, and releasing the documents is one of the things, along with making the Tulsa Race Massacre Day of Observance, I think are really important." Nichols said in the interview that the Trust was a way to take the conversation out of the political realm. "Let's model for everybody on how this repair work can be really restorative for the entire community, and let's do that as best we can outside the political context," Nichols said. "If it's good for all of us, well, maybe public policy can now follow something that's been a model good for everybody." Where will the money go? Under the plan, a housing fund will receive $24 million dollars from the trust for housing and homeowner benefits for Race Massacre descendants. A cultural preservation fund will have $60 million to reduce blight and implement parts of a master plan for the Kirpatrick and Greenwood neighborhoods in North Tulsa and a legacy fund will receive $21 million to develop trust owned land and fund scholarships for descendants and economic development grants for the area. The mayor added that the trust's work provided an opportunity for parts of the "descendant community" that left Tulsa to be reconnected to the city. "There's a lot of families that, after the massacre, decided Tulsa was not the place for them," Nichols said. "The goal is a scholarship, for example, to go to school in the state of Oklahoma, to come to school here and we will pay the cost of education. The goal, with the business grants and no interest loans, is to open a business here in Tulsa, in the Greenwood District, or North Tulsa, to bring back those great entrepreneurs and business owners whose families may have left Tulsa because of what happened in 1921." The trust - named the Greenwood Trust for the neighborhood where the massacre took place in - will employ an executive director and fundraising staff, paid by private funding. Nichols said in a statement that the first year of the trust would focus on planning and fundraising. "The next step is now we're going to make these investments so it's not just symbolic," Nichols told USA TODAY. "We're going to come behind that and make the investments necessary to show that not only are we recognizing (the massacre) but we're also showing that we're a much different community in 2025 than we were in 1921." What was the Tulsa Race Massacre? In the early 1900s, 40 blocks to the north of downtown Tulsa boasted 10,000 residents, hundreds of businesses, medical facilities an airport and more. But on May 31, 1921, a white mob descended on Greenwood - the Black section of Tulsa - burning, looting, and destroying more than 1,000 homes. The massacre is reported to have started with an accusation that Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old shoe-shiner, assaulted a white female teenager in an elevator. Decades later, the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission concluded, Sarah Page, 17, was interviewed by police but made no allegations of assault. Rowland was arrested and white men went to the jail to demand that he be released to "face mob justice," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a speech launching a long-awaited Department of Justice probe into the massacre in 2024. A fight broke out after members of the Black community showed up to protect Rowland from being lynched. A mob then invaded Greenwood, looting and destroying businesses and homes. Tulsa authorities deputized some white men, instructing them to "get a gun and get busy and try to get" a Black person, according to witness accounts and records at the time. The Oklahoma National Guard participated in mass arrests of nearly everyone living in Greenwood. "Some suspect that the aim of the white mob was, all along, to appropriate the wealth of the Black community and that the allegations against Mr. Rowland were merely an excuse," Clarke said. The true death toll of the massacre may never be known, with the search for unmarked graves continuing more than a century later. Most historians who have studied the event estimate the death toll to be between 75 and 300 people. In January, the department said that while there are credible reports that law enforcement was involved in the attack, it had no avenue to prosecute the crimes. The department cited the expiration of relevant statutes of limitations and the youngest potential defendants being more than 115 years old. Contributing: Dale Denwalt, Minnah Arshad - USA TODAY Network; Reuters
USA Today
3 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Tulsa mayor unveils reparation plan to 'repair' community at center of 1921 Race Massacre
Tulsa mayor unveils reparation plan to 'repair' community at center of 1921 Race Massacre Show Caption Hide Caption Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed Greenwood and impacted generations The destruction of an Oklahoma community 100 years ago was based on an unfounded accusation. The impact of the attack has left real wounds. Paige Dillard, Oklahoman The mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has unveiled a reparations plan for the descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre as well as the neighborhood area once known as "Black Wall Street" on the first official remembrance day for the massacre. Mayor Monroe Nichols' plan, dubbed "Road to Repair," centers around a private trust tasked with raising $105 million in assets before June 1, 2026, the 105th anniversary of the massacre. "The pursuit for better defines greatness - a people that will look back 104 years and dare to be better - dare to come together to face a complicated past and commit to each other for a better future," Nichols said in a speech Sunday. Along with the trust, Nichols announced the release of 45,000 historic documents related to the massacre. "For us as a city, we want to model that we are a partner that wants to foster a level of trust with this entire community," Nichols, the first Black mayor of Tulsa, told USA TODAY in an interview Monday, June 2. "The massacre has always loomed as an event that really isn't rooted in a lot of trust over the years, and releasing the documents is one of the things, along with making the Tulsa Race Massacre Day of Observance, I think are really important." Nichols said in the interview that the Trust was a way to take the conversation out of the political realm. "Let's model for everybody on how this repair work can be really restorative for the entire community, and let's do that as best we can outside the political context," Nichols said. "If it's good for all of us, well, maybe public policy can now follow something that's been a model good for everybody." Where will the money go? Under the plan, a housing fund will receive $24 million dollars from the trust for housing and homeowner benefits for Race Massacre descendants. A cultural preservation fund will have $60 million to reduce blight and implement parts of a master plan for the Kirpatrick and Greenwood neighborhoods in North Tulsa and a legacy fund will receive $21 million to develop trust owned land and fund scholarships for descendants and economic development grants for the area. The mayor added that the trust's work provided an opportunity for parts of the "descendant community" that left Tulsa to be reconnected to the city. "There's a lot of families that, after the massacre, decided Tulsa was not the place for them," Nichols said. "The goal is a scholarship, for example, to go to school in the state of Oklahoma, to come to school here and we will pay the cost of education. The goal, with the business grants and no interest loans, is to open a business here in Tulsa, in the Greenwood District, or North Tulsa, to bring back those great entrepreneurs and business owners whose families may have left Tulsa because of what happened in 1921." The trust – named the Greenwood Trust for the neighborhood where the massacre took place in – will employ an executive director and fundraising staff, paid by private funding. Nichols said in a statement that the first year of the trust would focus on planning and fundraising. "The next step is now we're going to make these investments so it's not just symbolic," Nichols told USA TODAY. "We're going to come behind that and make the investments necessary to show that not only are we recognizing (the massacre) but we're also showing that we're a much different community in 2025 than we were in 1921." What was the Tulsa Race Massacre? In the early 1900s, 40 blocks to the north of downtown Tulsa boasted 10,000 residents, hundreds of businesses, medical facilities an airport and more. But on May 31, 1921, a white mob descended on Greenwood – the Black section of Tulsa – burning, looting, and destroying more than 1,000 homes. The massacre is reported to have started with an accusation that Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old shoe-shiner, assaulted a white female teenager in an elevator. Decades later, the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission concluded, Sarah Page, 17, was interviewed by police but made no allegations of assault. Rowland was arrested and white men went to the jail to demand that he be released to "face mob justice," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a speech launching a long-awaited Department of Justice probe into the massacre in 2024. A fight broke out after members of the Black community showed up to protect Rowland from being lynched. A mob then invaded Greenwood, looting and destroying businesses and homes. Tulsa authorities deputized some white men, instructing them to "get a gun and get busy and try to get" a Black person, according to witness accounts and records at the time. The Oklahoma National Guard participated in mass arrests of nearly everyone living in Greenwood. "Some suspect that the aim of the white mob was, all along, to appropriate the wealth of the Black community and that the allegations against Mr. Rowland were merely an excuse," Clarke said. The true death toll of the massacre may never be known, with the search for unmarked graves continuing more than a century later. Most historians who have studied the event estimate the death toll to be between 75 and 300 people. In January, the department said that while there are credible reports that law enforcement was involved in the attack, it had no avenue to prosecute the crimes. The department cited the expiration of relevant statutes of limitations and the youngest potential defendants being more than 115 years old. Contributing: Dale Denwalt, Minnah Arshad – USA TODAY Network; Reuters
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tulsa mayor unveils plan for $100M trust to 'repair' effect of 1921 Race Massacre
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols is proposing a $100 million private trust as part of a reparations plan for descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Nichols, the city's first Black mayor, told the Associated Press that the proposal wouldn't require city council approval, but the council would need to authorize the transfer of any city property to the trust. Dig deeper Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols said the private trust would offer descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre scholarships and housing help. This plan would not give direct cash payments to descendants or the last two centenarian survivors of the attack that killed as many as 300 Black people. RELATED:Reparations lawsuit for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre dismissed by judge Nichols told reporters he does not use the term reparations, which he calls politically charged, characterizing his plan instead as a "road to repair." The Associated Press reported that the 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. The plan calls for the bulk of the funding, $60 million, to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing Tulsa's north side. Nichols made the announcement about the plan at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the district of North Tulsa that was destroyed by a white mob during the massacre. There are only two living survivors of the Race Massacre in Tulsa, both of whom are 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher. The women, both of whom were in attendance on Sunday for the event. The backstory TheTulsa Race Massacre occurred between May 31 and June 1, 1921 in the Greenwood community, a Black-owned business district and residential neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sparked by allegations that a 19-year-old Black man had assaulted a 17-year-old white girl in an elevator, the Greenwood community, known as Black Wall Street because of the number of Black-owned businesses, was destroyed in a two-day attack by a white mob. RELATED:Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Hughes Van Ellis dies at 102 Tulsa's police department appointed white mobs and provided them with guns. Some reports describe white men with badges setting fires and shooting Black people as part of the Greenwood invasion. In the aftermath of the attack, roughly 300 Black people were killed. Over a thousand homes were burned and others looted, leaving 10,000 residents displaced and homeless and the Black business district destroyed. As residents worked to rebuild the Greenwood community, thousands of residents during the winter of 1921-22 were forced to live in tents, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Dig deeper Tulsa is not the first U.S. city to explore 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. According to the Associated Press, other places and organizations that have considered providing reparations range from the state of California to cities including 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. The Source Information for this story was provided by the Associated Press and the Oklahoma Historical Society, which provides background on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tulsa mayor unveils plan for $100M trust to address effects of 1921 race massacre
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols (D) outlined plans for a trust on Sunday to address the ongoing effects stemming from the 1921 massacre that killed as many as 300 Black people, in one of the worst racial attacks in the country's history. The $105 million city-backed plan, put forward by the city's first Black mayor, would not provide direct payments to descendants of the massacre, nor to the two living survivors themselves. But it would set up a private charitable trust aimed at rebuilding the city's north side and investing in housing and revitalizing buildings. 'This is a critical step to help to unify Tulsans and heal the wounds that for so long prevented generations of our neighbors from being able to recover from the Race Massacre,' Nichols said in a press release. 'The Greenwood Trust is really a bridge that connects what we as a community can bring to the table and what the community needs. As we seek to make this framework a reality, I am eager to work alongside my fellow Tulsans and partners across the country to create a fundamental shift in how we further establish generational wealth, housing opportunities, and repair for so many Tulsans,' he continued. The Greenwood Trust will be created with the goal of securing the $105 million in assets by June 1, 2026, which is the 105th anniversary of the massacre. The plan specifies that a privately funded executive director, as well as a board of trustees and a board of advisors, would be onboarded to 'manage and operate the daily functions of the trust.' The first operational year of the trust will be a 'planning year' to get the initiatives off the ground. The majority of that funding, $60 million, would be designated for the Cultural Preservation Fund, to focus on improving buildings and 'reducing blight.' The Cultural Preservation Fund will also go toward implementing aspects of the Kirkpatrick Heights Greenwood Master Plan, which aims to develop a framework to redevelop 56 acres of publicly owned property in North Tulsa. The master plan is a community-led planning process whose goal is to 'evaluate existing conditions and opportunities, develop a vision for redevelopment of the sites, recommend structures for long-term ownership and governance of the sites, and create an action-oriented plan for implementation,' according to the site. Also included in the $105 million Greenwood Trust is a $24 million Housing Fund, which would create housing opportunities for massacre survivors and descendants. The third component of the trust would be a $21 million Legacy Fund, which would help create a scholarship funding structure for stronger educational pathways for descendants, as well as funding for small business and organizational grants to further economic development in the community. Nichols announced the plan at the Greenwood Cultural Center on Sunday, June 1, which he previously designated as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official city holiday, in an executive order earlier this year. He noted that the plan does not use the term reparations, which he said is politically charged, and instead he characterized his plan as a 'road to repair,' The Associated Press reported. 'At this moment in our nation's history, this work will allow us to stand together and become a national model for how cities confront their history while charting a new path forward rooted in unity and truth,' Nichols said in the release. 'I firmly believe we have a community that is ready to take this step forward based on the advocacy work that has already taken place. 104 years after the Massacre, it is up to us to provide the framework that will build up a community that has been left out for far too long.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Tulsa mayor unveils plan for $100M trust to address effects of 1921 race massacre
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols (D) outlined plans for a trust on Sunday to address the ongoing effects stemming from the 1921 massacre that killed as many as 300 Black people, in one of the worst racial attacks in the country's history. The $105 million city-backed plan, put forward by the city's first Black mayor, would not provide direct payments to descendants of the massacre, nor to the two living survivors, themselves. But it would set up a private charitable trust aimed at rebuilding the city's north side and investing in housing and revitalizing buildings. 'This is a critical step to help to unify Tulsans and heal the wounds that for so long prevented generations of our neighbors from being able to recover from the Race Massacre,' Nichols said in a press release. 'The Greenwood Trust is really a bridge that connects what we as a community can bring to the table and what the community needs. As we seek to make this framework a reality, I am eager to work alongside my fellow Tulsans and partners across the country to create a fundamental shift in how we further establish generational wealth, housing opportunities, and repair for so many Tulsans,' he continued. The Greenwood Trust will be created with the goal of securing the $105 million in assets by June 1, 2026, which is the 105th anniversary of the massacre. The plan specifies that a privately funded executive director, as well as a board of trustees and a board of advisors, would be onboarded to 'manage and operate the daily functions of the trust.' The first operational year of the trust will be a 'planning year' to get the initiatives off the ground. The majority of that funding, $60 million, would be designated for the Cultural Preservation Fund, to focus on improving buildings and 'reducing blight.' The Cultural Preservation Fund will also go toward implementing aspects of the Kirkpatrick Heights Greenwood Master Plan, which aims to develop a framework to redevelop 56 acres of publicly owned property in North Tulsa. The master plan is a community-led planning process whose goal is to 'evaluate existing conditions and opportunities, develop a vision for redevelopment of the sites, recommend structures for long-term ownership and governance of the sites, and create an action-oriented plan for implementation,' according to the site. Also included in the $105 million Greenwood Trust is a $24 million Housing Fund, which would create housing opportunities for massacre survivors and descendants. The third component of the trust would be a $21 million Legacy Fund, which would help create a scholarship funding structure for stronger educational pathways for descendants, as well as funding for small business and organizational grants to further economic development in the community. Nichols announced the plan at the Greenwood Cultural Center on Sunday, June 1, which he previously designated as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official city holiday, in an executive order earlier this year. He noted that the plan does not use the term reparations, which he said is politically charged, and instead he characterized his plan as a 'road to repair,' The Associated Press reported. 'At this moment in our nation's history, this work will allow us to stand together and become a national model for how cities confront their history while charting a new path forward rooted in unity and truth,' Nichols said in the release. 'I firmly believe we have a community that is ready to take this step forward based on the advocacy work that has already taken place. 104 years after the Massacre, it is up to us to provide the framework that will build up a community that has been left out for far too long.'
