Justice must be served on all fronts and while we are in the position to remember, it is important that we record history in the manner that it should. The Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre was the worst act of domestic terrorism in the United States and has been such from 1921 until the present day. When commissioners went looking to do the right thing, that is what nearly all of them found and what they recommended in last year's preliminary report. To be sure they had found the right thing, they have used this formal report to explore once more the distant terrain of the Tulsa race riot and the forbidding territory in which it lies. Now, they are certain.
Reparations are the right thing to do.
Please do your best to contact the Oklahoma State Legislature and let them know that you are watching and expect not revenge borne of bloodlust but justice anchored in what is both morally and legally right. Kimberly Ellis is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at Purdue University, who is writing her dissertation on the Literary Response to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. She gives multimedia presentations and lectures on the history, literature, healing and reparations surrounding this historical atrocity.