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The first black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has unveiled an ambitious reparations plan that would see more than $100 million bought the descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Mayor Monroe Nichols announced on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust consisting of private funds to address problems including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic advancement for north Tulsans.

Of that money, $24 million will approach housing and home ownership for the descendants of the attack that eliminated as lots of as 300 black people and took down 35 blocks, according to Public Radio Tulsa.

Another $21 million will money land acquisition, scholarship funding and financial advancement for the blighted north Tulsa neighborhood, and a whopping $60 million will go towards cultural conservation to enhance buildings in the as soon as prosperous Greenwood neighborhood.

'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history,' Nichols said at an event celebrating Race Massacre Observance Day.

'The massacre was concealed from history books, just to be followed by the deliberate acts of redlining, a highway constructed to choke off economic vigor and the continuous underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

'Now it's time to take the next big actions to restore.'

But the proposition will not consist of direct money payments to the last recognized survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, who are 110 and 111 years of ages.

Mayor Monroe Nichols revealed on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust making up private funds to deal with issues including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic development for north Tulsans

His plan does not consist of direct cash payments to the last recognized survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle (left) and Viola Fletcher (best), who are 110 and 111 years of ages. They are envisioned in 2021

They had been defending reparations for many years, and previously this year their attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons argued that any reparations prepare should include direct payments to the 2 survivors in addition to a victim's payment fund for exceptional claims.
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However, a claim Solomon-Simmons - who also founded the group Justice for Greenwood - was overruled in 2023 by an Oklahoma judge who stated the plaintiffs 'don't have limitless rights to payment.'

The judgment was then promoted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2015, moistening racial justice advocates' hopes that the city would ever make monetary amends.

But after taking office previously this year, Nichols said he reviewed previous propositions from regional neighborhood organizations like Justice for Greenwood.

He then discussed his strategy with the Council and descendants of the massacre victims.

'What we wanted to do was discover a way in which we could take in a variety of these suggestions, so that it's reflective of the descendant neighborhood, of the folks that came up with some recommendations,' Nichols said as he also pledged to continue to browse for mass graves believed to consist of victims of the massacre and release 45,000 formerly categorized city records.

No part of his plan would require city board approval, the mayor noted, and any fundraising would be performed by an executive director whose wage will be paid for by private financing.

A Board of Trustees would likewise figure out how to distribute the funds.

Still, the city board would have to authorize the transfer of any city residential or commercial property to the trust, something the mayor stated was extremely likely.

People take pictures at a Black Wall Street mural in the historical Greenwood area

He explained that one of the points that really stuck with him in these discussions was the damage of not simply what Greenwood was - with its dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery stores - however what it might have been.

'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' he told the Associated Press. 'So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of a financial future that would have measured up to anywhere else worldwide.'

'You would have had the center of oil wealth here and the center of black wealth here at the same time,' he included his remarks to the Times. 'That would have made us an economic juggernaut and would have probably made the city double in size.'

Many at Sunday's event stated they supported the strategy, even though it does not include cash payments to the 2 elderly survivors of the attack.

As numerous as 300 black individuals were eliminated in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which took down 35 blocks in the then-prosperous Greenwood area

The community was once filled with dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery shops before it was burned down

Chief Egunwale Amusan, a survivor descendant, for example, stated the he has actually worked for half his life to get reparations.

'If [my grandpa] had actually been here today, it most likely would have been the most corrective day of his life,' he told Public Radio Tulsa.

Jacqueline Weary, a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab business in Greenwood that were damaged, on the other hand, acknowledged the political problem of providing money payments to descendants.

But at the exact same time, she wondered how much of her household's wealth was lost in the violence.

'If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,' said Weary, 65.

'It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally eliminated.'

A group of black were marched past the corner of second and Main Streets in Tulsa, under armed guard throughout the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921

Nichols said the area was once a center of commerce

The violence in 1921 emerged after a white woman informed police that a black male had grabbed her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa commercial structure on May 30, 1921.

The following day, police detained the man, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had attempted to attack the lady. White people surrounded the court house, requiring the man be handed over.

World War One veterans were among black men who went to the court house to face the mob. A white guy tried to deactivate a black veteran and a shot called out, touching off even more violence.

White individuals then robbed and burned structures and dragged the black people from their beds and beat them, according to historic accounts.

The white people were deputized by authorities and advised to shoot the black residents.

Nobody was ever charged in the violence, which the federal government now categorizes as a 'coordinated military-style attack' by white citizens, and not the work of an unruly mob.