TULSA, OK — Tulsa’s newest mayor released a statement on Tuesday announcing his administration will release a plan that will address the legacy of harms and economic fallout from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the deadliest racial massacres in U.S. history.
The Tulsa Race Massacre left an estimated 300 Black people dead at the hands of a white mob who destroyed and the once-thriving Greenwood District of Tulsa, though some historians believe the number could be higher.
“In the coming weeks, I will share the framework my administration will use to heal the open wounds left by the Massacre and create a stronger, more unified Tulsa for all,” Mayor Monroe Nichols said in a statement, reported the Associated Press. Nichols, who was elected in November, is Tulsa’s first Black mayor.
The announcement did not say what requests Nichols’ administration plans to adopt from a proposal that advocates with Justice for Greenwood have released called Project Greenwood. The Project Greenwood proposal makes several recommendations for descendants of the victims of the massacre, including funding a scholarship, preference for city jobs and contracts and exemption from paying city taxes and utilities.
The Project Greenwood proposal also calls from the two surviving victims of the massacre, whose cases were dismissed by the Arkansas Supreme Court last year, to be financially compensated.
More on Project Greenwood and the Tulsa Race Massacre.