Tulsa’s mayoral candidates differ on the issue of paying cash reparations for survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
In the historic massacre, a white mob destroyed the prosperous Black Greenwood neighborhood and killed as many as 300 people. Remaining massacre survivors Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher unsuccessfully sued Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma for cash reparations for the government roles in the event.
During a televised News On 6 debate Monday night, candidate Monroe Nichols — who is Black — said he doesn’t have a defined position on cash reparations.
“What’s most important is we have a community conversation on what reparations looks like for Tulsa,” he said, adding that he will “wake up every day to make sure that we are righting the wrongs of the past.”
Nichols also gave a nod to Evanston, Illinois’ reparations program, which has given housing relief payments to descendants of residents who lived in the city when discriminatory ordinances were in effect.
Both Nichols and candidate Karen Keith say they support the city’s Beyond Apology Commission, created to study how reparations could be given to north Tulsans and specifically descendants of the race massacre.
But Keith — who is White — is not neutral on cash reparations.
“I am not in favor of spending city dollars for reparations, but what I will support with every bone in my body is working to get home ownership in north Tulsa, working with philanthropy,” she said.
Keith also said she would like to work with small businesses that were adversely affected by the massacre and by the construction of Interstate 244, which cut through Greenwood Avenue when it was built in the early 1970s.
Keith’s position on cash reparations is more in line with current mayor G.T. Bynum, who has argued they would be punitive to Tulsans, including massacre survivors.
But, like Nichols and Keith, Bynum has supported the Beyond Apology commission. Bynum and City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper spearheaded the creation of the commission, even though they disagree on cash reparations.
Nichols and Keith gave their answers the same day the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was opening a review of the race massacre. The review is under the purview of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the feds to look into racially-motivated cold cases from more than 45 years ago.
