Tulsa’s first Black mayor proposed creating a $100 million private trust as part of a reparations plan for the impact of the Tulsa Race Massacre which took place more than 100 years ago.
Mayor Monroe Nichols IV, elected mayor in November, says the trust would be used to provide scholarships and housing to the descendants of those impacted by the massacre. He clarified that the trust would not involve direct cash payments, however.
“For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city’s history,” Nichols said Sunday. “The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.”
“Now it’s time to take the next big steps to restore,” he added.
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The private charitable trust would be created with a goal to secure $105 million in assets, with most of the funding either secured or committed by June 1, 2026.
Nichols says the City Council would have to approve the transfer of any city assets to the trust.
The plan calls for the bulk of the funding, $60 million, to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing the city’s north side.
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“The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,” Nichols told the Associated Press. “So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.”
Nichols’ push comes just weeks after Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., announced plans to introduce the Reparations Now Resolution, which calls for the U.S. to spend trillions of dollars on reparations for Black Americans.
Lee’s resolution cites U.S. slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other racially discriminatory laws and policies to justify spending trillions of dollars supporting the descendants of Black Americans in the U.S.
“That’s why we recognize that the fight to restore Black folks has to be so much more substantive,” she added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
