TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa’s Beyond Apology Commission held a three day conference on April 24-26 Langston University’s Tulsa Campus to discuss reparations for survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.
The theme of the Tulsa Reparations Summit was “From Apology to Repair.”
The event featured national advocates, faith leaders and political strategists.
“We want people to understand reparations — what it is and what it’s not — and also to hear from people who are doing this work and letting them know it is possible,” said commission chair Kristi Williams. “In Oklahoma, we’re afraid to even say the word reparations, but everyone outside of Oklahoma is saying it boldly.”
Speakers included Robin Rue Simmons and pastor Michael Nabors from Evanston, Illinois – the only community in America that has provided reparations for Black people and their descendants who faced housing discrimination in Evanston between 1919 and 1969.
“I’ve spent years inside that gap, between the apology and the repair, as a civil rights attorney, as a litigator, as someone who has sat across the table from survivors and argued before courts on their behalf. I know what that gap costs people. I know how long it takes. And I know that closing it requires more than acknowledgment. It requires action that outlasts the moment,” said attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, who has represented the Tulsa Massacre survivors with numerous lawsuits seeking justice and remuneration for them and descendants of those who were harmed.
Solomon-Simmons noted that recently the United Nations took up a vote denouncing the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – and the U.S. voted against the measure.
“Let that sit for a moment,” said Solomon-Simmons. “While Tulsa is hosting a summit on repair, while Mayor Monroe Nichols is working to secure $105 million for Greenwood descendants by June 1st, while the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled in March that the city of Tulsa can no longer hide behind qualified immunity in the Crutcher case, the federal government looked at a century of documented harm and voted no.
“This is not a new story. It is the story. It is the century-long battle this country keeps refusing to finish,” he said.
Solomon-Simmons encouraged the community to go to RedeemANation.com and sign the pledge calling for reparations.
