02-06-2025
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.
