As America marks the 105th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, ABC Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami revisits the events that destroyed Black Wall Street, and national civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, whose new book Redeem a Nation offers a blueprint for the justice that still hasn’t come.
Damario Solomon-Simmons’s book Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America is available now. Learn more about the Justice for Greenwood organization and the Road to Repair initiative at justiceforgreenwood.com.
At Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there are 18 plots long believed to hold Black men killed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. For decades, no one could find the bodies. That erasure, of bodies, of records, of memory, is the story of Tulsa. And 105 years later, it is still being fought over.
“The people who are buried here one day walked out of their home, disappeared, and were never seen again.”
1. The last living survivor is 111 years old and justice still hasn’t come.
Lessie Benningfield Randle was six years old when she watched Greenwood burn. She has spent over a century seeking justice through every legitimate channel available. Every court case has been dismissed. The U.S. Justice Department declined to act. She is still asking.
2. What happened in Tulsa was not a “riot.” It was government-assisted domestic terrorism.
A white mob, armed and deputized by local law enforcement, fired from airplanes, burned 35 city blocks, killed up to 300 Black Americans, and left 10,000 people homeless in under 24 hours. No one was ever held legally responsible. That impunity was not an accident. It was the point.
3. $105 million is on the table, but it is private money, not government accountability.
Tulsa’s first Black mayor launched the Road to Repair Greenwood Trust, targeting descendants, surviving Greenwood entities, housing, and scholarships. This is privately fundraised. Not one dollar has come from the city, state, or federal government, and the full amount still has not been raised.
4. Tulsa is the benchmark for all reparations in America.
Solomon-Simmons makes it plain: if the country cannot deliver justice for a documented, living survivor of the largest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, it will be even harder to secure reparations for enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining, and sharecropping. Tulsa is not just history. It is the test case.
5. Reparatory justice is already how America works, just not for Black people.
Every car accident, broken leg, and missed workday gets compensated in this country. That is reparatory logic. Solomon-Simmons’s argument is simple: apply the same framework that already exists to what was done to Black Americans. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is directing $1.7 billion to January 6th insurrectionists. This country knows how to pay. It chooses who deserves it.
“If we cannot get justice and reparations for an actual survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, it’s going to be more difficult for us to get it for other aspects of Jim Crow, enslavement, redlining, and sharecropping. But all those things need to be rectified for this country to actually be what it says on paper.”
— Damario Solomon-Simmons
Damario Solomon-Simmons’s book Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America is available now. Learn more about the Justice for Greenwood organization and the Road to Repair initiative at justiceforgreenwood.com.