00:00105 years after the Tulsa race massacre devastated Black Wall Street, the fight for justice is still alive.
00:07Now civil rights attorney DeMario Solemn Simmons is leading the battle for reparations for survivors and their descendants,
00:14a mission chronicled in his newly published book, Redeemer Nation.
00:19Because if we look back at American history and we're looking at the sin that started this country,
00:26which is the enslaving of Black people, that has not been remedied.
00:29And then you look at the Tulsa race massacre, which is the most bloody, most destructive race massacre since enslavement,
00:36that has not been remedied.
00:38We cannot talk about what America has or will be without making sure that these issues are discussed and we
00:44get reparatory justice for both.
00:47In 1921, white mobs devastated Tulsa's thriving Black community of Greenwood, killing hundreds, burning homes and businesses.
00:57America is still grappling with reparations because America is still grappling with the legacy of slavery,
01:02the legacy of racial discrimination, the legacy of Jim Crow,
01:08the legacy of the violent exclusion of Black people from the body politic that began after Reconstruction and that continued
01:18well into the civil rights era.
01:21Reparations for slavery and racial injustice have been debated in the U.S. for generations.
01:27Today, many experts argue reparations should focus on rebuilding entire communities, not just compensating individuals.
01:38So I think if we think of reparations as something that we need to think about in terms of collective
01:44repair as opposed to individual repair,
01:47giving people who've been disenfranchised access to education, access to job training, access to housing loans, access to the kind
01:59of structures of care that can transform both individuals and communities,
02:05that feels like a productive conversation to be having.
02:09Opponents argue there are no living perpetrators or enslaved victims left to make legal claims for reparations today.
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