$105 million reparations package for Tulsa Race Massacre unveiled by mayor

By Audrea D.S. Burch

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, killed up to 300 Black residents and destroyed a neighborhood. More than a century later, the city’s mayor announced a $105 million reparations package Sunday, the first large-scale plan committing funds to address the impact of the atrocity.

Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Tulsa, unveiled the project, named Road to Repair. It is intended to chip away at enduring disparities caused by the massacre and its aftermath in the Greenwood neighborhood and the wider North Tulsa community in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The centerpiece of the project is the creation of the Greenwood Trust, a private charitable trust, with the goal of securing $105 million in assets — including private contributions, property transfers and possible public funding — by next spring, the 105th anniversary of the attack.

The plan does not include direct cash payments to the two last known survivors of the massacre, who are 110 and 111 years old. But such payments could be considered by the trust’s board of trustees, according to Michelle Brooks, a city spokesperson.

Nichols, who announced the creation of the trust fund at a gathering in Tulsa to commemorate the city’s first Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, said a plan to restore Greenwood — a neighborhood that was so prosperous before the attack that it inspired the name Black Wall Street — was long overdue.

“One hundred and four years is far too long for us to not address the harm of the massacre,” Nichols said in an interview before the announcement. He added that the effort was really about “what has been taken from a people, and how do we restore that as best we can in 2025, proving we’re much different than we were in 1921.”

Unlike some similar efforts by cities, states and universities across the country to establish reparations, the plan in Tulsa directly addresses the impact of a specific historical event.

The movement for reparations — addressing slavery and the country’s history of racism — gained traction in 2020, when the murder of George Floyd prompted a nationwide conversation about racial injustice. Many of the proposals are still being explored, though large segments of the U.S. population oppose reparations, as the Trump administration purges the federal government of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

On the state level, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, the nation’s sole Black governor, recently vetoed legislation that would have created a commission to study reparations. The state of California apologized last year for the discriminatory treatment of Black Americans and approved some reparations initiatives, but stopped short of financial restitution.

Evanston, Illinois, became the first U.S. city to establish a reparations program in 2021, distributing housing grants meant to make up for past discriminatory housing practices. The program is funded by the city’s cannabis sales tax and by real estate taxes. Last year, the city was sued by a conservative organization, which argued that the program was unconstitutional because it discriminated against non-Black residents. The case is pending.

In Tulsa, the Greenwood Trust resources will be divided into three general areas: a $24 million housing fund for homeownership and housing assistance; a $60 million cultural preservation fund for building improvements and cleaning up blight; and $21 million for land acquisition and development, small business grants and scholarships. As part of the program, the city intends to release 45,000 pages of historical documents related to the 1921 massacre, including Greenwood property records.

Nichols will act as a spokesperson for the trust, but fundraising will be handled by an executive director whose salary will be paid by private funding. The City Council would have to approve any public money or city-owned land used by the trust. Nichols acknowledged that residents might not support a project that uses public funds.

Nichols said he has been working on a framework to address the disparities created by the massacre, with help from the city’s legal department. He reviewed other proposals from local community organizations and a city commission and discussed the general plan with City Council members and descendants of the massacre victims. One of the points that stayed with him from those talks, he said, was the destruction not just of what Greenwood was, but also what it could have been.

“You would have had the center of oil wealth here and the center of Black wealth here at the same time,” he said, referring to the area. “That would have made us an economic juggernaut and would have probably made the city at least double in size.”

Back then, Greenwood was filled with restaurants, theaters, hotels, grocery stores and houses. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a white mob descended on the district and burned it to the ground. Some 1,250 homes were destroyed and 35 blocks were razed.

A federal report issued in January recast the massacre as “a coordinated, military-style attack” by white citizens, not the work of an uncontrolled mob.

The toll was devastating beyond the death and destruction. To many historians, civil rights lawyers and activists, that single event entrenched economic, educational and health disparities in Greenwood and North Tulsa for generations.

Over decades, the survivors, descendants of Greenwood residents and their supporters have demanded justice from the city of Tulsa and other government entities. In 2021, the city apologized for its role in the massacre. The last two known survivors, Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Ford Fletcher, sought reparations through the courts. The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed their case last June.

Randle attended Sunday’s announcement of the reparations package with LaDonna Penny, 53, a granddaughter. In an interview, Penny said she was ecstatic about the trust.

“Restoration and reparation,” she said. “That’s what happened today.”

Deborah Hunter, 74, a poet and spoken word artist, was there, too. She’s a descendant of four grandparents who were survivors of the massacre. Decades ago, on the 50th anniversary of the massacre, Hunter said she asked her sole grandmother who was still alive about what happened. Even then, she said, “she still didn’t want to talk about it.”

Hunter said she hoped part of the $105 million would be spent on some of the things that the massacre had stolen from Greenwood: “We are missing jobs and safe streets on this side of town,” she said, “and of course, we need funding for the arts.”