Tulsa at a Crossroads

Reparations and restoration on Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day.

Crews work at Oaklawn Cemetery during an excavation while searching for bodies from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Oct. 27, 2022, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Mike Simons / Tulsa World via AP)

On June 1, 2026, Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Tulsa, made a historic announcement in what I like to call a microphone-drop moment. After months of silence and whispers about what he would do to address calls for reparations, Nichols unveiled his plans at a much-awaited ceremonial presentation at the Greenwood Cultural Center in North Tulsa, on the day that he’d recently proclaimed Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, a citywide holiday.

From his place at the podium, Nichols spoke directly to the two known remaining survivors in the audience, honoring the community harmed by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that killed some 300 citizens in what has been called the most violent act of domestic terrorism in our nation’s history. (Today, only one survivor remains: Lessie Benningfield Randle, who is 111.)

It was time to restore, Nichols said, quoting from the book of Isaiah.

“Instead of your shame you shall have double honor. And instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess double. Everlasting joy shall be theirs.” As Nichols later explained to me, he selected that passage because it spoke of a “reconnection and renewal of the relationship between God and his people. Tulsa, as a city in the Bible Belt, had broken that covenant in the most profound way possible, and in a very aggressive way, for a long time.”

That was all well and good, many who attended that day must have thought, as they waited. But what was the mayor actually going to do? They’d gathered expectantly to hear what they hoped would, at last, be an action plan.

On this first day of observance, Nichols continued, “I’m announcing that my office has been working alongside our legal department on the establishment of the Greenwood Trust—a private charitable trust that will raise and facilitate the investment of $105 million in private funds along our road to repair, restoration, and righteousness.”

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Boom. There it was. Audible gasps could be heard from the crowd as he laid out what would come next.

At that moment, Tulsa established itself as next in line to possibly become only the second city in America to provide reparations to a Black community historically harmed by racist actions.

Evanston, Illinois, had been the first, in 2019, when the city’s legislative body voted to make payments of up to $25,000 for eligible applicants who had experienced housing discrimination and redlining between 1919 and 1969. As of September 2025, Evanston had met with more than 271 beneficiaries and paid out more than $6 million.

While the federal government actively blocks efforts at repair for historically harmed communities, there is hope in a growing number of municipalities—cities and towns all across America—where more than 200 reparations initiatives have been established in the last several years.

In my hometown of Santa Monica, California, one of the largest locally funded initiatives of its kind was unanimously approved by the city council in early 2026 with a $3.5 million Restorative Justice Fund—a development that had been instigated by the successful case of Constance White, the 90-year-old daughter of entrepreneur Silas White, who acquired land for an “Ebony Beach Club” in 1957. Nat King Cole was among the supporters, and some 2,000 members had signed up. White’s dreams were obliterated, however, when the city seized the property under eminent domain, and eventually demolished the building.

In nearby Manhattan Beach, a wealthy town that still has a Black population of only about 1 percent today, “Bruce’s Beach,” a seaside resort that was seized from Black entrepreneurs Charles and Willa Bruce in 1924, was also recently returned to the couple’s great-grandsons. For the first time ever in this country, a local government body returned actual land to an actual Black family—land that had been taken under eminent domain for racially motivated reasons.

The concept of reparations remains unpopular in this country among many citizens of all races, including a good portion of Black people.

But smaller bodies—municipalities and universities and religious establishments—are increasingly having conversations about what it means to make amends, and how communities can begin to do this work despite the knee-jerk unpopularity that the term tends to invoke.

Not long after Mayor Nichols’s historic announcement, I met with Tulsa city councilors Vanessa Hall-Harper and Lori Decter Wright for dinner. Hall-Harper, who has represented District 1 since 2016, is the single most powerful driving political force behind efforts to repair the Greenwood community. Decter Wright, who represents District 7, is her steadfast ally, and someone who…