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TULSA, Okla. — Oklahoma state Senator Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, will hold a press conference on Saturday, March 29 at 10 a.m. at the Greenwood Cultural Center to share updates on Senate Bill 1054, the Tulsa Reconciliation Education Scholarship bill.
The scholarship was created 24 years ago by a bipartisan Oklahoma Legislature, led by then-Rep. Don Ross, Sen. Maxine Horner, and President Pro Tem Stratton Taylor.
This session, Sen. Goodwin, a descendant of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has secured full Senate approval for legislation to update the program. SB 1054 now awaits consideration in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
If signed into law, the bill would clarify language and widen eligibility requirements to descendants who live anywhere in the country. Previously, a descendant had to be a resident of the Greenwood District to be eligible for the scholarship.
Scholarship applications are currently open, and Goodwin will provide further information on how students can apply.
Joining Sen. Goodwin at the press conference will be “mother” Lessie Benningfield Randle, a 110-year-old survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, along with two of her great-grandsons—both recipients of the scholarship.
The event highlights ongoing efforts to invest in educational opportunities rooted in truth, history, and reconciliation decades after state-commissioned report called recommended reparations to the survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
In October 2023, the Oklahoma House of Representatives held an interim study, led by then-Rep. Goodwin, on the decades-old report.
“I would be open to it,” Republican Chair of the committee Rep. Kevin West told the Black Wall Street Times after the hearing when asked if he would begin conversations to pass the bill.
In recent weeks, newly elected Mayor Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor in the city’s history, announced steps to repair Greenwood, its survivors and its descendants. Justice for Greenwood, an organization led by national civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, released a proposal for a reparations package in February.
“I look forward to implementing significant elements of the plan in partnership with Justice for Greenwood and other stakeholders. In the coming weeks, I will share the framework my Administration will use to heal the open wounds left by the Massacre and create a stronger, more unified Tulsa for all.”
In addition to the reparations package, the city’s Beyond Apology reparations commission has released a $24 million proposal for housing reparations, nearly 104 years after a government-sanctioned white mob killed upwards of 300 Black men, women and children and destroyed over 1,200 homes.
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To hear updates to state Sen. Goodwin’s Tulsa Reconciliation Education Scholarship bill, attend the Greenwood Cultural Center press conference at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 29.
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Deon Osborne was born in Minneapolis, MN and raised in Lawton, OK before moving to Norman where he attended the University of Oklahoma. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Media and has… More by Deon Osborne
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