A Tale of Two Responses: Tulsa vs Maryland
One Moves Toward Repair, The Other Retreats
by Nkechi Taifa, Esq.
Tulsa’s mayor launches a bold reparations trust as Maryland’s governor vetoes a bill to study harm. What happens when leadership chooses courage — and when it does not?
In a profound act of leadership and moral courage, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s newly elected — and first Black — Mayor Monroe Nichols marked the 104th anniversary of the 1921 Race Massacre not just with remembrance, but with action. From the heart of historic Greenwood, he announced the creation of a $105 million Greenwood Trust, designed to address racial disparities, support Massacre survivors and their descendants, and invest in the majority-Black communities of North Tulsa.
This bold and necessary step is an example of what reparatory justice can look like when public officials choose to act — not because the courts demand it, but because conscience does. It is a long-overdue response to state-sanctioned terror, and a powerful model for cities and states across the country.
And yet, just days earlier and hundreds of miles away, the winds of history blew in the opposite direction. In Maryland — a state whose wealth was once built on the backs of enslaved Africans — Governor Wes Moore vetoed Senate Bill 587, which would have established a Maryland Reparations Commission to study the impact of slavery and its long afterlife, and to recommend steps toward redress.
This veto was unexpected. And yes — deeply disappointing.
It was not just a missed opportunity; it was a moment when the past cried out for recognition — and was told to wait. Again.
To be clear, Governor Moore’s veto does not erase the overwhelming support the legislation received from the Maryland General Assembly. Nor does it erase the long history of harm — dispossession, redlining, Jim Crow, police violence, mass incarceration — that still burdens Black communities throughout the state, from Baltimore to Prince George’s County to the Eastern Shore.
The cost of the proposed Commission? Less than $60,000 annually in a $67 billion state budget. The cost of inaction? Immeasurable.
I do not seek to lambast the Governor, especially one who has made historic strides as Maryland’s first Black chief executive. But leadership is not only symbolic — it must also be substantive. In this case, the substance of justice demands that the General Assembly override the veto and allow the Commission to be created. Because repair cannot wait.
Let us hold these two moments side by side.
In Tulsa, after decades of silence and rejection from the courts and federal government, a new generation of leadership stepped forward to do what should have been done long ago: acknowledge the truth, and act on it. Mayor Nichols, in defiance of political convenience, declared, “We’ve recognized and remembered. Now it’s time to restore.”
That is what reparations looks like — not just apology, but action. Not just symbolism, but structure.
Maryland still has time to get it right.
The movement for reparations is not a moment — it is a moral imperative. One that is being embraced across the country, from Evanston to California, from New York to Tulsa. We urge Maryland not to fall behind.
The Reparation Education Project stands proudly with those demanding the General Assembly override the veto. Let the study move forward. Let the truth be told. Let the path to repair be paved — because, as Mayor Nichols reminded us, our tomorrows must be better than our yesterdays.
And for that to happen, we must face the past with honesty — and commit to justice with resolve.
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Nkechi Taifa is an attorney, author, and Executive Director of the Reparation Education Project, Inc. www.ReparationEducationProject.org
