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The very first black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has revealed an ambitious reparations prepare that would see more than $100 million purchased 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 address concerns including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic advancement for north Tulsans.

Of that cash, $24 million will go towards 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 financing and economic development for the blighted north Tulsa community, and a massive $60 million will go toward cultural preservation to enhance structures in the once prosperous Greenwood community.

'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has actually been a stain on our city's history,' Nichols said at an event commemorating 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 economic vitality and the continuous underinvestment of regional, state and federal governments.

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

But the proposal will not include direct cash payments to the last known 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 consisting of personal funds to address issues consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic advancement for north Tulsans

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

They had actually been defending reparations for many years, and previously this year their lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons argued that any reparations prepare should include direct payments to the 2 survivors in addition to a victim's settlement fund for impressive claims.

However, a lawsuit Solomon-Simmons - who likewise established the group Justice for Greenwood - was struck down in 2023 by an Oklahoma judge who declared the plaintiffs 'do not have limitless rights to settlement.'

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

But after taking workplace previously this year, Nichols stated he examined previous proposals from local neighborhood companies like Justice for Greenwood.

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

'What we wished to do was discover a method which we might take in a number of these suggestions, so that it's reflective of the descendant community, of the folks that came up with some suggestions,' Nichols said as he likewise pledged to continue to look for mass graves believed to contain victims of the massacre and release 45,000 previously classified city records.

No part of his plan would require city board approval, the mayor kept in mind, and any fundraising would be performed by an executive director whose income will be paid for by private funding.

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

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

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

He explained that one of the points that actually stuck to him in these conversations was the damage of not simply what Greenwood was - with its restaurants, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery shops - but what it could have been.

'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' he told the Associated Press. 'So what was lost was not simply something from North Tulsa or the black neighborhood. It actually robbed Tulsa of a financial future that would have matched anywhere else in the world.'

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

Many at Sunday's event said they supported the strategy, although it does not include money payments to the 2 senior survivors of the attack.

As lots of as 300 black individuals were killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which razed 35 blocks in the then-prosperous Greenwood area

The community was once filled with restaurants, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery stores before it was burned down

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

'If [my grandpa] had been here today, it probably would have been the most restorative 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 taxi business in Greenwood that were damaged, on the other hand, acknowledged the political problem of offering cash payments to descendants.

But at the same time, she questioned how much of her family's wealth was lost in the violence.

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

'It truly 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 said the community was when a center of commerce

The violence in 1921 erupted after a white female informed police that a black guy had actually gotten her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa business building on May 30, 1921.

The following day, police apprehended the man, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had actually attempted to assault the lady. White individuals surrounded the courthouse, requiring the guy be turned over.

World War One veterans were among black guys who went to the courthouse to deal with the mob. A white man tried to deactivate a black veteran and a shot sounded out, touching off even more violence.

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

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

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