Tulsa Massacre Victims Commission Considers Reparations

Tulsa, Oklahoma, officials have announced the formation of a brand new Beyond Apology Commission to advocate for reparations for survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. City Councilwoman Vanessa Hall-Harper is pushing for money payments to victims.

According to the Associated Press, the 13-member commission will consider two reports calling for financial reparations — one from town in 2023 and one other from a state commission in 2001. Hall-Harper and Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum each chosen one representative to the commission, while the remaining 11 members were chosen from community members and city employees.

“One of the most difficult issues I have faced as mayor was the issue of reparations for the victims of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and their families,” Bynum said.

As previously mentioned BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIPTulsa’s black residents were massacred by white mobs throughout the Tulsa race riots, which also devastated the thriving Greenwood District. For years, Oklahoma didn’t acknowledge the violence and take motion.

City Councilwoman Hall-Harper, who’s from Tulsa and whose district includes Greenwood, supports financial reparations and said she can be disillusioned if money payments weren’t included. Mayor Bynum has opposed the financial reparations request and has as an alternative stated other proposed demands from town’s Beyond Apology report to supply residents with higher housing, economic development, health care and education. His first order of business for the Beyond Apology Commission is to create a housing equity program for survivors, descendants of race riot victims and residents of north Tulsa.

In addition, the 2023 report really helpful that survivors and descendants be offered land restitution.

TO BE It was previously noted that Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Fletcher, 110, the last known survivors of the massacre, and Hughes Van Ellis, who died in 2023, sued town and state for damages, but their appeal was denied. In June, a lawsuit filed by two survivors was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.