Commission to meet on reparations

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A state commission will consider next week whether reparations are owed for losses in Tulsa's 1921 race riot, despite continued debate over exactly what happened, its chairman

Wednesday, January 26th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A state commission will consider next week whether reparations are owed for losses in Tulsa's 1921 race riot, despite continued debate over exactly what happened, its chairman said Wednesday. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission will meet Feb. 4, and chairman Bob Blackburn expects it will vote on reparations.

The 11-member panel, which has spent two years investigating what historians believe was one of the nation's deadliest racial clashes, must make a recommendation on the issue of reparations to state lawmakers by Feb. 7. A final report with the commission's conclusions on historical and archeological findings, however, likely won't be ready until spring, Blackburn said. "The historical evidence has been expanded so much but not substantially," he said. "There's still a lot of room for debate."

A subcommittee of the commission has proposed a $33 million reparation package that would include scholarships, a museum and tax breaks to encourage business development -- in addition to direct payments to more than 70 living survivors. Blackburn said that, in his opinion, a recommendation
"that detailed and that aggressive" could limit "the next step." "We will have full opportunity to discuss that, but I think we've got to keep focused on what will continue this dialogue," he said. "We've got to have something that continues the process."

Other commission members have voiced their support for the proposal. The violence that broke out May 31, 1921, led to the destruction of Tulsa's black business district. Some historians estimate as many as 300 people died, but that figure remains in dispute. State. Rep. Don Ross, whose legislation helped create the commission, has introduced a new bill to extend the commission's tenure.

Blackburn hopes a legislative committee will be assigned to look at the commission's findings and its recommendations. That would allow debate and discussion to continue through the year, he said. "I don't think this is an issue you want debated on the floor of the House and Senate," he said. "I think elected officials need to hear our findings in a more deliberate and less-pressured atmosphere."

Work has yet to begin in the excavation of a Tulsa cemetery believed to hold a possible mass grave from the riot. Blackburn said he did not know whether that work would be completed by next week's meeting. He would not say when the excavation would take place, saying it "would be done as quietly as possible."