KRMG:
After nearly eight months of waiting, a court date is now set for a hearing in the case for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre survivors and descendants. The lawsuit seeks reparations against the City of Tulsa.
Cleo Harris is the owner of Black Wall Street Tees and Souvenirs on Greenwood. Besides selling shirts and other trinkets of Greenwood, he offers his customers a history lesson – for free. He’s a descendant of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and only recently became comfortable to tell his family’s story. He said he feels his family’s pain from more than 100 years ago.
Harris said his family is why he’s an advocate for reparations not just in Tulsa, but across the country.
He has followed the Justice for Greenwood lawsuit for descendants and survivors since it was just chatter a year ago. When he heard there was a hearing set for it, he called it a start.
“I think that’s a step in the right direction. Is it the end all be all? No, we have a long ways to go,” Harris said.
He shares what reparations mean to him and how it could help build generational wealth.
“Give us the keys back, give us the land back. That’s reparations because you can’t put money on massacre, torture and rape,” Harris said.
“Reparations” actually should take the form of monetary compensation for anyone with an actual connection to the event, rather than an ethnic cleansing of downtown Tulsa.