The Case Against Local Reparations
As city and state programs pop up to compensate Black Americans for past harms, two experts are calling the idea of local reparations “an oxymoron.”
Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Viola Ford Fletcher, center, is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking reparations from the city and county for the destruction of the historic Black Greenwood neighborhood.
Photographer: Craig F. Walker/Boston Globe via Getty Images
Over the weekend, a judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought reparations from the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and the destruction of the historic Black Greenwood neighborhood. Local civil rights advocates decried the decision as a loss for racial justice, while lawyers for the race massacre survivors promised an appeal.
But for some Black history scholars, calling such efforts reparations is a “detour” from true compensation to Black Americans.