Interfaith leaders raising $100K for Tulsa Race Massacre reparations

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    TULSA, Oklahoma (Tulsa World) — Some Tulsa-area interfaith leaders hope their effort to raise money for Tulsa Race Massacre reparations will ultimately pay off by convincing the city of Tulsa to do the same.

Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries, in partnership with All Souls Unitarian Church, reached out to its member groups recently inviting them to participate in the “symbolic” gesture of raising $100,000, which will be paid as reparations to the remaining direct survivors of the 1921 massacre and to support ongoing community-building efforts in Greenwood.

“Paying reparations to the survivors, descendants and Greenwood community is a civic responsibility,” said TMM Executive Director Aliye Shimi, who on Monday will be part of an online public discussion on the subject.

“Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries and Tulsa’s faith communities are calling on the city to move forward with repaying the debt made by the strategic destruction that was led by city leaders a century ago.”

The Monday event is called “100 Years Later: A Reparations Discussion” and will include talk about the massacre centennial and how faith communities and leaders can support the cause. Registration is required to attend the online discussion.

Joining Shimi will be the Rev. Robert Turner of Vernon AME Church and the Rev. Marlin Lavanhar of All Souls.

Since joining Vernon AME Church in 2017, Turner has been outspoken in advocating for reparations and continues to lead a weekly protest in front of Tulsa City Hall calling for them.

“Over the years, there hasn’t been anything done to correct the damage the 1921 Race Massacre inflicted on the African-American community,” Turner said. “Reparations is an attempt to repair the historical and systemic damage the massacre caused.”

TMM and All Souls partnered in a similar effort to raise money for reparations in the early 2000s, again as a way to urge authorities to act.

The movement for massacre reparations had momentum following the 2001 release of the 1921 Race Riot Commission report to the state Legislature, which recommended direct restitution be made to survivors and their descendants.

However, it yielded no results, and a 2003 federal lawsuit seeking reparations was tossed due to the statute of limitations. A current state lawsuit filed last year argues that the massacre created an ongoing public nuisance, for which there is no statute of limitations.

The partners behind the interfaith effort say it shouldn’t take a lawsuit for the city to do what they believe is the right thing.

“Many of our faith communities see the issue of reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre as a moral imperative,” Lavanhar said. “The debt of a racist massacre and 100 years of failing our Black citizens has been made and it needs to be paid in the centennial year.”

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