Reparations for damage done to Tulsa's Greenwood district during the 1921 Race Massacre were a matter of discussion at that time, and they still are today, a state representative said.
Earlier this summer, state Rep. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, requested an interim study on the issue. That request was turned down by House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka.
Goodwin said last week she wanted to look into why recommendations issued in February 2001 by a legislative commission have not been fully implemented.
In fact, the commission's original call for restitution was made a year earlier, in a letter to Gov. Frank Keating. That letter was included in the 2001 report with a figurative line drawn under it.
The five recommendations were direct payments to massacre survivors and descendants of people harmed by the massacre, a scholarship fund, establishment of an "economic development zone," and "a memorial for the reburial of any human remains found in the search for unmarked graves."
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The commission acknowledged the recommendations were non-binding, and not all commissioners agreed on some of the them, but Goodwin — and others — think most of those were too easily dismissed.
"The Tulsa reparations conversation absolutely has to be held," Goodwin said last week.
The recommendations, she said "are a matter of public record."
Even among reparations proponents, there is some disagreement about the best approach to obtain them and what form reparations should or could take. Some believe they should address a broader pattern of mistreatment than the massacre alone.
The current Legislature, however, has been unwilling to consider the proposition at all.
Goodwin had difficulty near the end of the session getting a vote on a resolution recognizing the 100th anniversary of the massacre. She was told the Republican majority didn't want to hear it because made reference to reparations.
A less-pointed centennial resolution passed in the Senate.
"When I saw the push back on just a resolution, this isn't just about 'Oh, we've already studied it before.' This is about, are we going to be a responsible state?"
