Should We Give Up the Fight for Reparations? | Angela Rye SoloPod

Greenwood as many of you know as well. He is the founder and executive director of Justice for Greenwood. And today we're going to get into a discussion about reparations his upcoming book.

on paper. If you don't redeem and have a repertory of justice for black people, who will not have And when I talk about redeem a nation, I am talking about getting us back to a place that we have never been before. We've never been redeemed. The only way it can actually occur if there is real repair, and then that repair will allow us to become the nation that we say on paper we want to be people talk about democracy and this and that there is no

democracy without reparatory justice for black people. And what I'm excited about the book as I outline and explain the people get behind the scenes of my twenty five plus years of fighting for reparations both here for the Tulsa Race Masacre and in general, but also in my think Greenwood Principles, which you and I have talked about, where I really lay out a plan of action that any black community can utilize to create the type of Greenwoods

we need. So a lot of people think when they think about Greenwood, they think about, like you said, black Wall Street, which is fine, But black Wall Street was just a part of Greenwood. The real story is the community of Greenwood, and that community was created by five particular principles. In the first was community love. We need that more than ever in today's world. The second was

the freedom mind state. The third was ownership, and not just ownership of tangible things, for ownership of ourselves, ownership of our mentality, ownership of where we want to go in life. Numberfore we had education and web concentration, and number five with our real resilience. And these are things I'm talking about in the book because we're going to need all of those as we continue to go in this Magna two point ozero world.

I was wanting this out a long time ago, but I'm really happy that it's coming out right now, right before the Anna Persi and the mid terms. I think it's gonna be something that's gonna really move our community forward.

have the privilege of hearing her story. Can you please just share a little bit about Mother Fletcher Fletcher giving her recent passes.

She was an extraordinary woman who really if you think about Angela, she lived the entire arc of black people in this country right born in a great community of greenwood and got to enjoy a little bit of that before she had to run for her life on a horse and buggy for her family where everything was destroyed. Therefore she didn't get to get her education. They were sharecroppers.

Then she grows up as a jim crow. She's dealing with being a domestic worker for over seventy years, working for pennies, literally not getting the proper pension that she needed. And yet despite all of that heartache, she's still volunteered during World War Two to work and shipyard to San Diego, California, building navy ships. She still raised a family, she still became a grandmother and a great grandmother and an auntie.

And then in her twilight years, when I met her, As you know, and I've been working on this for a long time, so I've known literally over a couple hundred survivors I've represented, but I didn't meet Mother Flesh until twenty twenty. When I met her, she was one hundred and six years old, living by herself, living on her own, and she could have easily said, look, let me just live out my life. I'm good, but she decided, no, I want to I want to get justice because every

night I still see the bodies in the street. I still can fill the flames and see the flames. And this lady was relentless committed to the calls. Not for herself she would always say, you know, hey, I'm over one hundred, but for her family before the broader black community. She never missed the court date. We had several court days. She never missed. She flew to Washington, DC on three occasions. She met She testified in Congress on May nineteen, twenty

twenty one. We met the Vice President, Kamala Harris. You helped that happen in Angela. Thanks again. She came back to d C and twenty twenty three to meet with the Department of Justice to push for investigation. She told me one time early on, I said, mother Fletcher, you know, what can we do for you something you always wanted to do? She said, you know, I always wanted to go to Africa, And she went to Africa. We were able to the community get her and get her to

Africa with her little brother, Hughes van Ellis. She went over to Africa one hundred and seven years old, spent two and a half weeks. The lady was amazing. What on one hundred and eleventh birthday, which was last May tenth, we sang Happy Birthday to her and we were in this pack restaurant, one hundred people there. We seen the heavy birthday, the black version of course, and at the end we just started clapping. But she grabbed my shoulder, my arm. I said, you forgot to say it many

more to say this lady was full of energy. I was with her. She died on Monday the twenty third. I was with her Friday night already before at the hospital, right next to a hospital bed, and she was engaged. She was talking, and she was someone that was still wanting to see justice toward dying Dae. So you know, that's our charger. If nothing else, we want to make sure that we continue to push forward because we got all the fletchers all over this country. Yes, we have

all the fletchers in our families. We need to continue to fight for them. And that's what it means the redeem a nation. That's what it means to think greenwood. That's what it means to fight for paratory justice.

can remember, and I've known you since law school. Can you talk about how many people you've lost in this fight and what that feels like to you knowing that, Yes, there's been a local solve, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but there's not been this federal recognition. You heard from the former president that he was going to do something about it that didn't happen. I want you to talk about, just for a moment, the humanity.

Like I already know your rage. You know, you and I can go toe to toe at the rage level, but just like what that impact is like when you think about all the people you've come to knowing this work, they're gone, they didn't get to see justice before they passed.

last fifteen years of his professional life. He poured into this work, you know, and I poured into us so much, and you know he's gone. You think about people like Otis Clark, who was one hundred and nine when he died back in two thousand and seven, and the doctor Olivia Hooker who was over one hundred and four I think when she died, and the first African American female in the Coastguard. And just I traveled with these folks

so much, I mean, Wes Young. It's to so many names and to know that they all died without justice. And as you know, Angela, when I grew up here in told So, I went to middle school on Greenwood Avenue, never heard about the mask, I didn't learn about the mass couch. I went to University of Clones playing football nineteen ninety seven, and so at that point it sparked something to me to say, Okay, we're going to make sure people never forget about this. But also for our survivors.

They all thought very strongly that once the conspiracy of silence was broken, that now that the world would know what actually happened, understand that fifteen hundred and fifty homes was burnt down, that over a billion dollars in property damage, that eight thousand people were main homeless, that three thousand people disappeared, etc. They believe strongly, Angela that justice will come, and it didn't, and that really hurts me deeply because

they deserve that. And it also says what does it say about our standing as black people in this country that you can have the worst ever race massacre that's on video, that has hundreds of pictures, that has hundreds of insurance claims, that no one dispute to happen, and yet the local state and the federal government said we're not going to do anything about it. What does that say about our standing as full citizens?

I'm going to be on my best behavior today. But I want to know what you say to people who really don't think that we have we should have a dog in this fight anymore, even though it is absolutely rightfully ours.

dignity and fighting for our just compensation. So if you're willing to say I don't care about what my ancestors fault for, I don't care about what's old to us, then you know I really don't know. We don't. We're not the same. We're not the same. Secondly, it is a very function again, are we equal underneath the law

or not. If we're equal underneath the law, then we are old conversation for what happened to us, not just the physical labor, but what was taken from us, the narratives that were taking from us, the spiritual breakdown from us. I explained it like this, the every you know, people that love the NFL, Right, I'm a football guy, the NFL believe I.

your community. That's actually old. And then, thirdly, reparations sometimes gets so esoteric. I think people don't realize it's just as simple as someone hitting your car from behind and damaging your car, breaking your leg, causing you to miss time for work. But obviously they got to pay to fix your car o Reusly they need to pay a fix, you get your leg fixed, oriusly need to pay for the time off for work, and the need to pay

some pain and suffering. It's just that simple. So if you're saying you don't believe that we deserve reparations or we should fight reparations, you don't believe that black folks are full a citizens in the United States of America.

let me use another example. You remember back during the Environment administration, I think it was twenty eleven where we had that big explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the BP explosion, and all that oil was just shooting out underneath the war billions of millions of gallons of oil. So that's the impetus. That's like the massacre hadened, that's

the injuring event. But that oil, even though they plugged that hole within you know, a couple of weeks, but that oil continued to teraminate, continue to kill wildlife, continue to contaminate the air, they can continue to contaminate the water, continue to cause people to miss and lose their livelihood. And it continued for years and years and years, and guess what, it's still continued. And it's the same thing

with the master, it's the same thing with enslavement. It's the same thing with any of these issues ever renewed that destroy families, stop wealth, broke up communities. That harm is ongoing until you repair the harm. The harm is ongoing. And I think we don't have to really understand sometimes what that harm is, or we don't want to accept that we are still a harmed people. I know some people say stop being a victim. Well I was victimized. Yeah,

my parents were victimized. My grandparents were victimizds. So it's not like we're gonna stop doing what we're doing. Look, we're still fighting every day, but you still owe us

last thing. I would say, do you know, well two things. One, when the massurpation of proclamation came out at first they did in eighteen sixty two they made enslavement illegal and washed in DC and they paid reparations to the enslavers in Washington, right, But you know in England when they outlawed enslavement, they passed the bill I think was eighteen thirty three, eighteen thirty two. I talk about this in

the book. They actually paid reparations to enslavers, and that payment lasted up to like twenty fifteen, until the last payments were paid out. Okay, I'm saying that again, from eight thousand to twenty fifteen, so they understand what it means. Look at Haiti. Haiti had to pay reparations for getting their own their own freedom from the eighteen hundreds all the way up to like nineteen forty. So I want what everybody else in the world. I want four justice.

I want equal protection underneath the law.

that one of our top issues. Is not saying we're not going to vote if you don't do this preparatory justice, but make it one of our top issues that we push and push and be uncompromising, that we're old like these other people groups across the world and in this country.

And I was. And we presented to him what was called Project Greenwood, which you could learn more about in the book, but also at Justice Foragreen with dot org Project Greenwood, which was our thirteen point plan for a comprehensive reparations. We worked on that with him for a

number of months. He didn't accept everything we wanted, but he did accept about six of our proposals, including making Tulsa June first, Tulsa Race Mask of Reparation Commemorates day, which Angel you said something very interested in your acknowledgement. One thing I found out in this work is that as much as people want to be compensated, for sure,

they also want to be acknowledged for what happened. And so to have in law that this day will be a citywide holiday to commemorate the masker, particularly in this time of a rasure of black history, is huge. He also put forward one hundred and five million dollar private trust that will provide scholarships to massacre descendants. It will provide a business grant, a grant to our surviving entities. We had twelve surviving entities of the massacre, so they

would be eligible for these grants. They will also provide grants for business owners who are descendants. Also, twenty four million dollars in there is going to be provided for housing in the Greenwood community. And there's some other aspect. He released over forty five thousand documents that we have been suing the city for years to receive, and so you know, we made a lot of progress, and we really appreciate Mayor Nichols for his leadership and stepping out

as we continue to push him to do more. We still want for those outstanding claims over two hundred million dollars worth of claims to be paid. We still want for those who suffered the harm that we know were math killed, like doctor A. C. Jackson. We still want conversation for those things, and we will do both things

at the same time. We can. We can advocate while working with someone at the same time, and I encourage all of our listeners, all of your listeners, to remember that be steadfast, but it's okay to also work with someone and continue to push them.

and require something from their service. And so to that point, there's another elected official from state of California, Governor Gavin Newsom, who has received a ton of fanfare because he has been one of Donald Trump's chief trolls.

preferential you know, admission. They have legacy admissions, but that is still in effect housing like, there were so many programs that would have been beneficial and additive to black people who are the descendants of enslaved people in this country.

the resources that we deserve. And so the fact that Gavin newso veto those bills, I mean I was very disappointed. Like you said, these bills didn't cost me, didn't cost anything. You talked about the preferential treatment, I mean preferential admission, also a bill to give preferential professional licenses people who are from enslaved background. These are things that should happen because the damage was done we already talked about as

a continuing harm. And if you can document that you are from some family who has suffered this harm, you deserve to have preparatory justice. And so I think it's inexcusable that he vetoed those bills. It's very disappointed. The one bill he did go through is a six million

dollar package to study who could be eligible for the reparations. Well, I mean we study who could be eligible, Well, what are they going to get and to be honest, that's something that we are still working with the mayor here in Tulsa to make sure that we understand who's eligible to receive and make sure the right people receive it. So I absolutely wish should continue to push Gaven Newson.

I'm like everybody else, I like to see how he's you know, trolling the administration continue to do that.

it was about the entirety of the community. As to rest more, I think it was very interesting and I don't want to step on the toes of those some friends of mine who are working very hard in the state of Maryland, and how they feel about the veto. But what I thought was very interesting, and I don't think people picked up on it. Wes Moore said he veatoed the bill because we already know what to do,

all right, That's what he said. So my point with the NB if I was in Maryland, I would say, Okay, since you said we already know what to do, I would provide him legislation, specific legislation and the veto that yeah, okay, you don't want to do that, you don't want to do the study. You said, we already have this information. Okay, here's the bills, just like just like in California, they had a list of bills the newsom veto give Gavin,

give wes Moore a list of bills and see. Is it really true that he said I want to do the work. That's what he said. I'm gonna take a brother from his work. He said, I want to do the work. I want to do more study. So I would love to see. And we have huge majorities. I understand the Democratic majorities in Maryland, and I don't know if they're in session as soon as they get in session. I would bring those reparations bills one by one and send them to Wes Moore and say, brother, we heard

you say you didn't want to study. Here's the work, signed the bill, and then let's have a conversation after that.

passed away, we you know, we lost so much. You have mother inflectors in your own family. I want you to right now make a plan for the holidays when you're gonna be with your elders, make a plan to get their or history. Make a plan to sit down with them, turn on the phone and record them. And these are the five questions, and you can go. You can go to j Justice agree with We do genealogy. We can support We have seminars on there. These are the five questions. Though who are we? You know? What

is our what is our names? Sometimes our names have changed, it's spelled a different way. We don't understand all our family lines. We don't know where we migrated from. So number one, who are we? Number two? Where did we? Where all have we lived? And why? Find out when you were living in Georgia or Mississippi or or Oklahoma? And then why did you move and work parts of the family win. Number three, what did we build and

what have we lost? You know, you never know that business owner, that church that I mean, I found out my family, my father's family that I didn't know very well until I got grown built. We built churches in the nineteen teen that still stand, that still has the name on it, Jake Simmons, the Simmons Chapel. Right, So find out and then find out number four, what have we survived as a family? You know, is it a hurricane, is it a tornado? Was a family member lynch? We

somebody laid off? Will we homeless at one point? Get your history and number five from your elders. Find out what do they want the future generations of your family to know? What values are important to them, what lessons are important to them? What unfinished work do they want to make sure that the great nieces and the great

grandsons continue. So if you don't do anything else from this conversation today, I just encourage you to capture your own history and keep that for your own family, because our history and our families are the most important thing, and it's the only thing that we have that we can control, and it's what has sustained us over five hundred years here in the United States or what is now known in the United States.