✍🏾: @callmedr.c
On May 18, 2022, The Greenwood Cultural Center in the heart of #Tulsa Oklahoma welcomed the remaining survivors of the #TulsaRaceMassacre – Viola Fletcher, 108, Lessie Benningfield Randle, 107, and Hughes Van Ellis, 101. They were presented a donation of $1 million dollars by Ed Mitzen, co-founder of the New York-based nonprofit Business for Good.
Mitzen told @CNN, “We made this donation directly to the family so that we could help make their lives a little bit easier. And also to tell them that people do care and that their struggle matters.”
During the ceremony, Oklahoma State Representative Regina Goodwin said that although the gift was greatly appreciated and welcomed, it doesn’t stop them from continuing reparations for the survivors and their families.
The destruction that came over #BlackWallstreet and the miles surrounding it when white mobs attacked the prominent Greenwood District in North Tulsa will never be forgotten. Crowds of White, blood thirsty Tulsans flooded Black Wall Street, killing many of the prosperous neighborhood’s Black residents and demolishing their homes over the course of two days beginning May 31, 1921.
Earlier this month, an Oklahoma judge ruled that a Tulsa Race Massacre reparations lawsuit may proceed. Tulsa’s motion to dismiss the public nuisance civil court lawsuit was partially denied by Judge Wall.
Oklahoma’s public nuisance statute allows authorities to be sued, for what attorneys say was and is their role in endangering the safety of Greenwood’s residents and their property. The wild part about this is they say the plaintiffs must show that the “comfort, repose, health, or safety” of Greenwood’s residents was harmed, and that Tulsa officials failed to perform their duties to protect Greenwood and its residents from that harm.
Keep in mind, the United States military was called in, bombs were dropped, insurance claims denied, and that this was the first act of domestic terrorism.
It’s time for not only America to see what happened and understand but for Tulsa to take accountability. #BWLM💕
