Continuing the Reparations Debate

By Alfred L. Brophy

Sparked by David Horowitz’s recent advertisement in college newspapers, reparations for slavery has become a prominent issue. The Hartford Courant, one of the oldest newspapers in America, has apologized for advertising for runaway slaves. That apology was inspired by a story about another great Connecticut institution, Aetna Insurance, which had written policies on slaves’ lives. Now Congress is investigating the role of slave labor in constructing the United States Capitol.

In Oklahoma, the discussion about apologies and reparations relates to a more recent tragedy: the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Oklahomans are asking how their riot happened and what they should do now. Debate over reparations for the Tulsa riot centers around the city government’s culpability in fueling the destruction.

On the evening of May 31, 1921, a mob gathered at the Tulsa, Oklahoma Courthouse, threatening to lynch a young black man who worked shining shoes. He was accused of attacking a white woman who worked as an elevator operator. Rumors began to circulate in the city that a lynching was imminent. The proud black community, which was reading “radical” literature like The Crisis and talking about upholding the law against lynchers, decided to take a stand.

When black World War I veterans appeared that night to stop the lynching, all hell broke lose. The Tulsa police department commissioned several hundred white men as deputies to help put down what they thought was a “negro uprising.” According to widely circulated reports, the new deputies were told to “Go out and kill you a damn nigger.” Throughout the night groups of armed men went into the police station, planning their next moves.

The next morning around 5 a.m., those deputies, along with other white mobs, invaded Greenwood, the black section of Tulsa, and left it in ruins. The authorities arrested every Greenwood resident and took them to detention centers (what the newspapers called “concentration camps”) around the city. After the arrests, the mob, special deputies and uniformed police officers looted and burned the vacant buildings. By noon, more than 1,000 homes had been burned to the ground and thousands were left homeless.

The next day, those who had a white employer vouch for them were issued green tags, which they were required to wear, and released from the concentration camps into the custody of their employer. Black men without employers were required to work cleaning up the burned area for no compensation other than meals and housing.

One photograph of the riot, which shows the black section of the city on fire, was labeled “Running the Negro Out of Tulsa.” After the riot the black population declined by about one-third. Newspapers at the time are filled with reports of blacks walking along the railroad tracks headed out of town, never to return. The most poignant photograph of the riot shows the burned shell of the Dreamland Threatre, its marquee fallen. Such was the trajectory of Tulsa’s black community.

Recently, a commission funded by the Oklahoma legislature investigated the riot. Its purpose was to “excavate a history that had been consigned to oblivion for the past 75 years,” according to the distinguished historian John Hope Franklin.

The commission recommended paying reparations to survivors. It looked to precedents like the Civil Rights Acts of 1988, which paid $20,000 to Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II. It also cited the settlement of claims of Holocaust survivors from Swiss banks, which had retained some money deposited before the war by the survivors’ families, and the $2 million set aside by the Florida legislature for survivors of the 1923 attack on Rosewood, a black town burned during a week of rioting. There are other precedents. Families of victims of the East St. Louis riot of 1917 received more than $400,000 in 1921 to compensate them for losses.

Some Oklahomans say they should not be taxed for the sins of their parents and that current taxpayers did not commit the crimes that destroyed Greenwood. But successors often pay for their predecessors’ actions. Many of the current stockholders of the Mobil Oil Company, which recently was held liable for polluting the water of Cyril, Oklahoma, were not alive in 1947 when the first pollution began. But they have to pay the cleanup costs nevertheless. Just because taxpayers did not themselves participate in the riot does not mean the city is freed from legal or moral responsibility. But reconciliation is best if it comes from the heart, not a lawsuit.

Reconciliation might be achieved if the city and state together give $20,000 to each of the 100 or so survivors—the sum given to Japanese Americans interned during World War II by the Civil Rights Act of 1988, signed by former president Ronald Reagan. Such a plan would cost about $2 million.

The case for reparations in Tulsa is particularly strong because of the deputies’ responsibility for much of the riot’s destruction. As the Oklahoma Supreme Court acknowledged in a long-forgotten insurance case, after the Greenwood residents were arrested, some of the deputies set fire to their houses. The well-orchestrated attack left more than 30 blocks destroyed and perhaps as many as 175 dead.

As they decide what to do, Oklahomans are in good company. International discussion over apologies and reparations spans slavery and Native American land in the United States, apartheid in South Africa, Nazi slave labor and war crimes in places like China, Korea and the Balkans. Meanwhile, Tulsa and the Oklahoma legislature have the opportunity to restore something to the 100 survivors of the riot who are still alive.

Alfred L. Brophy is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of American Civilization at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.