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

Mayor Monroe Nichols announced on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust consisting of private funds to resolve concerns consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and financial advancement for north Tulsans.

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

Another $21 million will fund land acquisition, scholarship financing and economic development for the blighted north Tulsa community, and a massive $60 million will go towards cultural preservation to improve buildings in the once flourishing Greenwood neighborhood.

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

'The massacre was hidden from history books, just to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vigor and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

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

But the proposition will not consist of direct money payments to the last recognized survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, who are 110 and 111 years old.

Mayor Monroe Nichols revealed on Sunday that the city is opening a $105 million charitable trust consisting of personal funds to address concerns consisting of housing, scholarships, land acquisition and financial development for north Tulsans

His strategy does not consist of direct money payments to the last known survivors, Leslie Benningfield Randle (left) and Viola Fletcher (ideal), who are 110 and 111 years old. They are pictured in 2021

They had actually been defending reparations for several years, and earlier this year their attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons argued that any reparations plan need to consist of direct payments to the 2 survivors in addition to a victim's settlement fund for outstanding claims.

However, a suit Solomon-Simmons - who also established the group Justice for Greenwood - was overruled in 2023 by an Oklahoma judge who stated the plaintiffs 'do not have limitless rights to payment.'

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

But after taking workplace previously this year, Nichols said he evaluated previous proposals from regional neighborhood companies like Justice for Greenwood.

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

'What we wanted to do was find a method in which we could take in a number of these recommendations, so that it's reflective of the descendant community, of the folks that came up with some suggestions,' Nichols said as he also swore to continue to look for mass graves thought to include victims of the massacre and release 45,000 previously categorized city records.

No part of his strategy would need city board approval, the mayor noted, and any fundraising would be conducted by an executive director whose salary will be spent for by private financing.

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

Still, the city board would have 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 historic Greenwood neighborhood

He explained that a person of the points that truly stuck with him in these conversations was the damage of not simply what Greenwood was - with its restaurants, theaters, hotels, banks and grocery stores - but what it might have been.

'The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,' he told the Associated Press. 'So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the black neighborhood. It actually robbed Tulsa of a financial future that would have equaled 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 a financial juggernaut and would have probably made the city double in size.'

Many at Sunday's event said they supported the strategy, even though it does not include cash payments to the 2 elderly survivors of the attack.

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

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

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

'If [my grandfather] had actually 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 taxi company in Greenwood that were destroyed, on the other hand, acknowledged the political trouble of offering money payments to descendants.

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

'If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,' said Weary, 65.

'It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally taken away.'

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

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

The violence in 1921 erupted after a white female told police that a black man had actually gotten her arm in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa commercial structure on May 30, 1921.

The following day, police arrested the man, who the Tulsa Tribune reported had attempted to assault the woman. White people surrounded the courthouse, requiring the guy be turned over.

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

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

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

No one was ever charged in the violence, which the federal government now classifies as a 'collaborated military-style attack' by white people, and not the work of an unruly mob.