The first black mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma has actually unveiled an ambitious reparations prepare that would see more than $100 million invested in the descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Mayor Monroe Nichols announced on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust comprising private funds to address issues including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and financial development for north Tulsans.

Of that cash, $24 million will approach housing and own a home for the descendants of the attack that killed as many as 300 black individuals and took down 35 blocks, according to Public Radio Tulsa.

Another $21 million will fund land acquisition, scholarship funding and economic development for the blighted north Tulsa neighborhood, and a whopping $60 million will approach cultural preservation to enhance buildings in the when thriving Greenwood community.

'For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city's history,' Nichols said at an event celebrating Race Massacre Observance Day.

'The massacre was concealed from history books, only to be followed by the deliberate acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the continuous underinvestment of regional, state and federal governments.

'Now it's time to take the next big steps to restore.'

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 revealed on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust making up personal funds to deal with issues including housing, scholarships, land acquisition and economic development for north Tulsans

His plan does not include direct cash payments to the last recognized survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle (left) and Viola Fletcher (ideal), who are 110 and 111 years old. They are envisioned in 2021

They had actually been defending reparations for several years, and previously 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 compensation fund for outstanding claims.

However, a lawsuit Solomon-Simmons - who likewise founded the group Justice for Greenwood - was overruled in 2023 by an Oklahoma judge who stated the complaintants 'don't have limitless rights to compensation.'

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

But after taking office previously this year, Nichols said he examined previous propositions from regional neighborhood companies like Justice for Greenwood.

He then discussed his plan with the Tulsa City Council and descendants of the massacre victims.

'What we wished to do was find a method which we could take in a variety of these recommendations, so that it's reflective of the descendant neighborhood, of the folks that produced some suggestions,' Nichols stated as he likewise swore to continue to browse for mass graves believed to include victims of the massacre and release 45,000 previously categorized city records.

No part of his plan would need city council approval, the mayor noted, and any fundraising would be conducted by an executive director whose wage will be paid for by private financing.

A Board of Trustees would also identify how to disperse the funds.

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

People take photos at a Black Wall Street mural in the historical Greenwood community

He discussed that one of the points that really stuck to him in these discussions was the damage of not just what Greenwood was - with its dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery shops - however what it could have been.

'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 community. It actually robbed Tulsa of a financial future that would have measured up to anywhere else on the planet.'

'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 an economic juggernaut and would have probably made the city double in size.'

Many at Sunday's event said they supported the plan, despite the fact that it does not include money payments to the 2 elderly survivors of the attack.

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

The neighborhood was once filled with dining establishments, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery shops before it was burned down

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

'If [my grandfather] had been here today, it most likely 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 cab company in Greenwood that were damaged, on the other hand, acknowledged the political trouble of providing cash payments to descendants.

But at the same time, she wondered just how much of her household's wealth was lost in the violence.

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

'It truly was our inheritance, and it was literally eliminated.'

A group of black were marched past the corner of 2nd and Main Streets in Tulsa, under armed guard during the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921

Nichols said the neighborhood was as soon as a center of commerce

The violence in 1921 appeared after a white female told cops that a black male had gotten her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa commercial building on May 30, 1921.

The following day, authorities detained the male, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had tried to attack the female. White people surrounded the courthouse, demanding the man be turned over.

World War One veterans were amongst black men who went to the courthouse to face the mob. A white male attempted to deactivate a black veteran and a shot rang out, touching off even more violence.

White individuals then looted and burned structures and dragged the black people from their beds and beat them, according to historical accounts.

The white people were deputized by authorities and instructed to shoot the black locals.

Nobody 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 an unruly mob.