Add Tulsa Mayor Unveils Staggering $100M Reparations Plan
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<br>The first black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has unveiled an ambitious reparations plan that would see more than $100 million invested in the descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.<br>
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<br>Mayor Monroe [Nichols](https://cproperties.com.lb) revealed on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust consisting of private funds to attend to issues consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic advancement for north Tulsans.<br>
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<br>Of that cash, $24 million will go toward 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.<br>
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<br>Another $21 million will money land acquisition, scholarship financing and financial advancement for the blighted north Tulsa community, and a massive $60 million will approach cultural conservation to improve structures in the once prosperous Greenwood area.<br>
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<br>'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history,' Nichols stated at an occasion honoring Race Massacre Observance Day.<br>
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<br>'The massacre was hidden from history books, just to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway developed to choke off financial vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of regional, state and federal governments.<br>
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<br>'Now it's time to take the next huge actions to restore.'<br>
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<br>But the proposition will not consist of direct money payments to the last known survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, who are 110 and 111 years of ages.<br>
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<br>Mayor Monroe Nichols announced on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust making up private funds to resolve problems including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and [financial advancement](https://kopenaandecosta.nl) for north Tulsans<br>
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<br>His plan does not include direct cash payments to the last known survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle (left) and Viola Fletcher (ideal), who are 110 and 111 years of ages. They are visualized in 2021<br>
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<br>They had been battling for reparations for several years, and earlier this year their lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons argued that any reparations plan need to include direct payments to the two survivors as well as a victim's settlement fund for exceptional claims.<br>
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<br>However, a claim Solomon-Simmons - who also established the group Justice for [Greenwood -](https://galvanrealestateandservices.com) was overruled in 2023 by an [Oklahoma judge](http://mambotours.rs) who stated the complaintants 'do not have unlimited rights to settlement.'<br>
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<br>The judgment was then promoted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial justice advocates' hopes that the city would ever make financial amends.<br>
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<br>But after taking office earlier this year, Nichols said he reviewed previous propositions from local neighborhood organizations like [Justice](https://housesites.in) for Greenwood.<br>
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<br>He then discussed his plan with the Tulsa City Council and descendants of the massacre victims.<br>
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<br>'What we wished to do was find a method which we might take in a variety of these recommendations, so that it's reflective of the descendant community, of the folks that produced some recommendations,' Nichols said as he likewise pledged to continue to look for mass graves thought to contain victims of the massacre and release 45,000 previously classified city records.<br>
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<br>No part of his strategy would require city board approval, the mayor kept in mind, and any fundraising would be conducted by an executive director whose income will be spent for by personal financing.<br>
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<br>A Board of Trustees would likewise figure out how to distribute the funds.<br>
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<br>Still, the city council would need to authorize the transfer of any city residential or commercial property to the trust, something the mayor stated was [extremely](https://seedrealty.in) most likely.<br>
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<br>People take images at a Black Wall Street mural in the historical Greenwood community<br>
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<br>He explained that one of the points that really stuck with him in these discussions was the destruction of not just what Greenwood was - with its dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and supermarket - however what it could have been.<br>
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<br>'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 neighborhood. It in fact robbed Tulsa of a financial future that would have matched anywhere else in the world.'<br>
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<br>'You would have had the center of oil wealth here and the center of here at the very same time,' he included in his remarks to the Times. 'That would have made us an economic juggernaut and would have most likely made the city double in size.'<br>
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<br>Many at Sunday's event stated they supported the plan, even though it does not include [money payments](https://onedayproperty.net) to the 2 elderly survivors of the attack.<br>
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<br>As many as 300 black individuals were eliminated in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which razed 35 blocks in the [then-prosperous Greenwood](https://kopenaandecosta.nl) area<br>
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<br>The [neighborhood](https://pointlandrealty.com) was as soon as filled with dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery stores before it was burned down<br>
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<br>Chief Egunwale Amusan, a survivor descendant, for example, said the he has worked for half his life to get reparations.<br>
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<br>'If [my grandfather] had actually been here today, it probably would have been the most restorative day of his life,' he told Public Radio Tulsa.<br>
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<br>Jacqueline Weary, a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that were damaged, on the other hand, acknowledged the political difficulty of giving cash payments to descendants.<br>
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<br>But at the same time, she questioned just how much of her household's wealth was lost in the violence.<br>
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<br>'If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,[' stated](https://www.aber.ae) Weary, 65.<br>
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<br>'It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was actually eliminated.'<br>
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<br>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<br>
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<br>Nichols said the neighborhood was when a center of commerce<br>
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<br>The violence in 1921 erupted after a white female informed cops that a black man had actually gotten her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa industrial building on May 30, 1921.<br>
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<br>The following day, police apprehended the male, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had actually attempted to assault the lady. White individuals surrounded the court house, [demanding](https://asmauburn.com) the male be handed over.<br>
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<br>World War One veterans were amongst black men who went to the [courthouse](https://dev.worldluxuryhousesitting.com) to face the mob. A white male tried to disarm a black veteran and a shot rang out, touching off even more violence.<br>
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<br>White [individuals](https://homematch.co.za) then robbed and burned structures and dragged the black individuals from their beds and beat them, according to historical accounts.<br>[yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/mortgages/?page=3)
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<br>The white individuals were deputized by authorities and advised to shoot the black residents.<br>
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<br>No one was ever charged in the violence, which the federal government now classifies as a 'collaborated military-style attack' by white citizens, and not the work of a rowdy mob.<br>
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