The new black mayor of Tulsa offers a fiat of $ 100 million to the impact “ repair ” of the 1921 race massacre

Tulsa, okla. – The new mayor of Tulsa offered a private trust of $ 100 million on Sunday as part of a repair plan to give the descendants of the 1921 Massacre of Tulsa breed The scholarships and housing help in an attempt supported by the city to make amends to one of the worst racial attacks in American history.

The plan of the mayor Monroe Nichols, the first black mayor of the second city in Oklahoma, would not provide direct cash payments to the descendants or the last two centenary survivors of the attack which killed up to 300 blacks. He made this announcement to the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the former district of North Tulsa which was destroyed by a white crowd.

Nichols said that he did not use the term repairs, which he calls politically loaded, rather characterizing his scanning plan as a “repair road”.

“For 104 years, the Tulsa race massacre has been a stain in the history of our city,” said Nichols on Sunday after receiving a standing ovation from several hundred people. “The massacre was hidden in history books, to be followed by the intentional acts of red, a highway built to stifle the economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

“Now it’s time to take the next major steps to restore.”

Nichols said that the proposal would not require the approval of the municipal council, although the council should authorize the transfer of any property of the city to the trust, which, according to him, was very likely.

Private charitable trust would be created with the aim of obtaining $ 105 million in assets, most of the funding is guaranteed or committed by June 1, 2026. Although the details are developed during the next year by an executive director and a board of directors, the plan calls most of the funding, of 60 million dollars, to improve buildings and revitalize the northern side of the city.

“The Greenwood district at its peak was a trade center,” Nichols said during a telephone interview. “So what was lost was not only something of North Tulsa or the black community. He actually stolen Tulsa with an economic future that would have competed elsewhere in the world.”

Nichols’ proposal follows a decree he signed earlier this year by recognizing June 1 under the name of the observation of the Tulsa race massacre, an official city party. Events Sunday in the Greenwood district included a picnic for families, cults and a evening candlelit vigil.

Nichols also realizes that the current national political climate, in particular the radical assault of President Trump against diversity, actions and inclusion programs, poses difficult political reticulated winds.

“The fact that it aligns with a broader national conversation is a difficult environment,” admitted Nichols, “but that does not change the work we have to do.”

Jacqueline Weary, is a granddaughter of the survivor of the John R. Emerson massacre, Sr., who owned a hotel and taxi company in Greenwood which was destroyed. She recognized the political difficulty of giving cash payments to the descendants. But at the same time, she wondered how lost the wealth of her family was in violence.

“If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would always have his hotel,” said Weary, 65. “It was rightly our inheritance, and it was literally removed.”

Tulsa is not the first American city to explore repairs. The suburbs of Chicago d’Evanston, Illinois, was the first American city to make repairs available to its black residents for previous discrimination, offering eligible households $ 25,000 for home repairs, deposits on property and late interests or penalties on the property of the city. The financing of the program came from taxes on the sale of recreational marijuana.

Other communities and organizations that have planned to provide repairs vary from the State of California to cities, notably Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; and Iowa City, Iowa; Religious faiths like the episcopal church; And eminent colleges like the University of Georgetown in Washington.

In Tulsa, there are only two living survivors of the race massacre, both 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher. The women, who were both present on Sunday, received direct financial remuneration from a non -profit organization based in Tulsa and a philanthropic organization based in New York, but have received no reward from the City or the State.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, lawyer for the survivors and founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, said earlier this year that any repair plan should include direct payments in Randle and Fletcher and a victims compensation fund for claims in circulation.

A trial brought by Solomon-Simmons on behalf of the survivors was rejected by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma last year, smoking the hope of the defenders of racial justice that the city would make a financial amendments.