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The first black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has revealed an ambitious reparations prepare 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 personal funds to deal with issues consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic development for north Tulsans.
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Of that cash, $24 million will go towards housing and home ownership for the descendants of the attack that eliminated as many as 300 black individuals and razed 35 blocks, according to Public Radio Tulsa.

Another $21 million will money land acquisition, scholarship financing and economic advancement for the blighted north Tulsa community, and a massive $60 million will go towards cultural conservation to enhance structures in the once flourishing Greenwood community.

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

'The massacre was concealed from history books, only to be followed by the deliberate acts of redlining, a highway constructed to choke off financial vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

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

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

Mayor Monroe Nichols announced on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust comprising personal funds to resolve problems consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and financial advancement for north Tulsans

His strategy does not include direct cash payments to the last known survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle (left) and Viola Fletcher (best), who are 110 and 111 years old. They are visualized in 2021

They had actually been defending reparations for several years, and earlier 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 compensation fund for exceptional claims.

However, a suit Solomon-Simmons - who likewise founded the group Justice for Greenwood - was struck down in 2023 by an Oklahoma judge who declared the complaintants 'do not have endless rights to payment.'

The ruling was then upheld by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial justice advocates' hopes that the city would ever make financial amends.

But after taking office earlier this year, Nichols stated he reviewed previous propositions from local neighborhood companies like Justice for Greenwood.

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

'What we wanted to do was find a method in which we might take in a number of these recommendations, so that it's reflective of the descendant neighborhood, of the folks that brought forth some suggestions,' Nichols stated as he likewise promised to continue to search for mass graves believed to contain victims of the massacre and release 45,000 formerly classified city records.

No part of his strategy would need city council approval, the mayor kept in mind, and any fundraising would be conducted by an executive director whose income will be spent for by private financing.

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

Still, the city council would need to license the transfer of any city residential or commercial property to the trust, something the mayor said was extremely most likely.

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

He explained that a person of the points that really stuck to him in these conversations was the damage of not just what Greenwood was - with its restaurants, theaters, hotels, banks and supermarket - but what it could have been.

'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' he informed the Associated Press. 'So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the black community. It really robbed Tulsa of an economic 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 very same time,' he included his remarks to the Times. 'That would have made us a financial juggernaut and would have most likely made the city double in size.'

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

As many as 300 black people were killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which took down 35 blocks in the then-prosperous Greenwood neighborhood

The community was when filled with restaurants, theaters, hotels, banks and supermarket 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 grandfather] had been here today, it most likely would have been the most restorative day of his life,' he told Public Radio Tulsa.

Jacqueline Weary, a granddaughter of John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that were ruined, on the other hand, acknowledged the political difficulty of offering cash payments to descendants.

But at the 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 actually removed.'

A group of black were marched past the corner of 2nd and Main Streets in Tulsa, under armed guard throughout the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921

Nichols stated the community was as soon as a center of commerce

The violence in 1921 erupted after a white woman informed authorities that a black guy had actually grabbed her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa business structure on May 30, 1921.

The following day, cops arrested the male, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had tried to assault the woman. White people surrounded the court house, demanding the guy be turned over.

World War One veterans were among black guys who went to the court house to face the mob. A white guy attempted 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 historical accounts.

The white people were deputized by authorities and instructed to shoot the black locals.

No one was ever charged in the violence, which the federal government now categorizes as a 'coordinated military-style attack' by white residents, and not the work of a rowdy mob.