The attorney for the last two known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre announced a new plan this week to benefit Greenwood and the verified descendants of massacre survivors and victims.
With the 104th anniversary of the massacre four months away, attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons rolled out the plan, called Project Greenwood, at a press conference earlier this week. New mayor Monroe Nichols quickly indicated support for “significant elements” of the plan, according to Randy Krehbiel’s reporting in the Tulsa World. It’s not completely clear yet which elements the mayor supports and which he doesn’t, though he did issue a very promising statement of partnership with Justice for Greenwood, the nonprofit backing the plan. From Krehbiel’s reporting:
“Project Greenwood reflects the unshakable resolve of the last living massacre survivors and descendants to address the generational impact of Greenwood’s destruction and move Tulsa forward,” Nichols said in his written statement. “I look forward to implementing significant elements of the plan in partnership with Justice for Greenwood and other stakeholders.
“They both want to see justice before they die,” said a tearful LaDonna Penny, a granddaughter of survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle. “If this is the opportunity to give them their flowers while they’re still here, then the city needs to do it.”
The plan is worth reading. Some of what it calls for first surfaced in Solomon-Simmons’ lawsuit that the state Supreme Court dismissed last summer and some of it is new. Here’s a condensed version of what Solomon-Simmons is asking of the City of Tulsa:
- Immediate compensation for Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle, the two living massacre survivors
- A compensation fund for families of victims
- Economic development and scholarship programs for descendants
- Descendent employment and contracting preference programs with the City of Tulsa
- Construction of a hospital in north Tulsa
- June 1 to be made an official city holiday
- Release of all massacre records
- A criminal investigation of known murder victims
Mayor Nichols has previously indicated support for economic development projects and the release of all city documents pertaining to the massacre. Solomon-Simmons said he is exploring private-public partnerships to help to finance the project.
One particular request, the municipal employment preference program for descendants, reminded me of a story from the reporter James Hirsch’s history of the massacre, Riot and Remembrance. A survivor, Robert Fairchild, lived to see the 75th anniversary of the massacre in 1995. From Hirsch’s book:
At ninety-two, he had white hair, small fragile bones, and poor hearing, but nobody stood larger in Greenwood. Fairchild had had a long career in the city’s park department, pushing for recreational facilities in public housing and other improvements affecting black Tulsans; he ran a North Tulsa Meals on Wheels program and taught an adult literacy course.
Fairchild died nine weeks after the 1995 commemoration. But at that year’s commemoration, according to Hirsch, then-mayor Susan Savage had been surprised to learn that Fairchild—whom she’d known for 10 years—was a massacre survivor.
Parts of Fairchild’s story have remained more or less constant since 1921: Black Tulsans having to advocate on their own behalf in their dealings with a white municipal structure that is, at best, unaware of the historic deficit their neighbors started from.
A mayor publicly vowing to work with North Tulsans from the jump is unprecedented. We’re in new territory.
In other news this week:
- ICE raids in Tulsa create fear and spark protests as the state rolls out plans to coordinate with the feds’ deportation efforts
- Supermercados Morelos closes all locations Monday, you can probably guess why
- If you thought the Department of Government Efficiency is cool and going great at the national and state level, you’re in luck! We might get a local version too!
- Hugely influential civil rights attorney Ryan Kiesel died at 45
- Basque to close at end of service on February 15
- OSU president Kayse Schrum resigns abruptly
- AI slop is creeping into your library
- Chet back
