Tulsa Plans $100M Reparations Package for Race Massacre

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 Massacre scholarships and housing help in a city-backed bid to make amends for one of the worst racial attacks in US 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, per the AP. He made the announcement at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the once-thriving district of North Tulsa 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." "For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history," Nichols said Sunday after receiving a standing ovation from several hundred people. "The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state, and federal governments. Now it's time to take the next big steps to restore."

Nichols said the proposal wouldn't require city council approval, although the council would need to authorize the transfer of any city property to the trust, something he said was highly likely. 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, the 105th anniversary of the massacre. Although details 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. "If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel," said Jacqueline Weary, 65. "It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally taken away." (More Tulsa Race Massacre stories.)