Revelation without reparation: evaluating the Oklahoma commission to study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921

Abstract

ABSTRACT For decades, a White narrative of self-defence against a Black uprising suppressed the truth of the 1921 Tulsa (Oklahoma) race massacre and blocked reparations to survivors. In 2001, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (often called the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, or TRRC), a truth commission established by the state of Oklahoma, demonstrated that Whites had conducted a pogrom against the Black community of Tulsa for which the government shared culpability. The TRRC recommended to the state legislature a reparations programme that included restitution and compensation to survivors and their descendants. However, because of flaws in the conception and execution of its mandate, the TRRC failed to convince the Oklahoma legislature to implement and fund its recommendations. The experience of the TRRC illustrates the gap between the measures that a truth commission recommends and those ultimately implemented by policymakers and offers lessons to future truth commissions charged with proposing reparations in response to organised violence.