TULSA, OK – Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has ordered the creation of a 13-member commission to study how the city can make reparations for the 1921 massacre that destroyed a prosperous Black community, writes Ken Miller for the Associated Press.
The panel will review 2023 and 2001 reports by separate city and state commissions, both of which called for direct financial reparations, Miller writes, noting Mayor Bynum has previously opposed these calls for cash reparations.
In a statement, Bynum noted that, in addition to direct cash payments, avenues toward reparations might include improvements in education, housing, economic opportunity, and health care, as well as the transfer of land and property back to survivors and descendants of victims.
The creation of this panel comes less than two months after the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit seeking reparations filed by centenarians Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, the last known survivors of the massacre, who are expressly seeking “justice within their lifetimes.”
The 1921 massacre, carried out by armed white men, destroyed Tulsa’s thriving Greenwood District, which was nicknamed Black Wall Street and home to 200 Black-owned businesses, said AP.
After more than a thousand buildings in the neighborhood were burned or otherwise destroyed, surviving residents were placed by the National Guard in hastily built internment camps. Most of the community’s considerable wealth was lost, AP wrote.
At the time, the State of Oklahoma put the death toll at 36 – but historians believe the real number could be as high as 300. The quest by local activists and the city of Tulsa to find and identify all victims of the massacre, many of whom were burned or piled into mass graves, is currently ongoing, said AP.
Tulsa City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper, who announced the formation of the committee alongside Bynum and whose district includes the Greenwood neighborhood, was supportive of exploring avenues such as land and academic resources, but stated she would be “absolutely disappointed” if reparations did not include cash, according to AP.
According to Miller’s article, the commission will include one Bynum appointment, one appointment by Hall-Harper, and 11 other members selected via application.
Meanwhile, Randle and Fletcher have appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider their ruling on the dismissed suit.
Lawyers, AP wrote, acting on behalf of the two survivors have also requested that the US Dept of Justice investigate the massacre, citing the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act, which allows “the investigation and prosecution of criminal civil rights statutes violations that occurred before 1980 and resulted in a death.”
