Tulsa's new Black mayor proposes $100M trust to 'repair' impact of 1921
Race Massacre
[June 02, 2025]
By SEAN MURPHY
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — 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 U.S. 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. 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. 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.
“The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,” Nichols
said in a telephone interview. “So what was lost was not just something
from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an
economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world."
Nichols' proposal follows an executive order he signed earlier this year
recognizing June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official
city holiday. Events Sunday in the Greenwood District included a picnic
for families, worship services and an evening candlelight vigil.
Nichols also realizes the current national political climate,
particularly President Trump's sweeping assault on diversity, equity and
inclusion programs, poses challenging political crosswinds.
“The fact that this lines up with a broader national conversation is a
tough environment,” Nichols admitted, “but it doesn't change the work we
have to do.”
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Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols IV speaks during the Legacy event for the
Tulsa Race Massacre on Sunday, June 1, 2025, at Greenwood Cultural
Center in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Joey Johnson)
Jacqueline Weary, is a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R.
Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that
were destroyed. She acknowledged the political difficulty of giving
cash payments to descendants. But at the same time, she wondered how
much of her family'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 taken away.”
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.
Other communities 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.
In Tulsa, there are only two living survivors of the Race Massacre,
both of whom are 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola
Fletcher. The women, both of whom were in attendance on Sunday,
received direct financial compensation from both a Tulsa-based
nonprofit and a New York-based philanthropic organization, but have
not received any recompense from the city or state.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the survivors and the
founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, said earlier this
year that any reparations plan should include direct payments to
Randle and Fletcher and a victims' compensation fund for outstanding
claims.
A lawsuit filed by Solomon-Simmons on behalf of the survivors was
rejected by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial
justice advocates' hopes that the city would ever make financial
amends.
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