Excerpt: A Fight for Justice in Tulsa and a Blueprint for Black Power

In his new book, “Redeem a Nation,” civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons chronicles the legal battle to get reparations for the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

“Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America” by Damario Solomon-Simmons arrives in bookstores on Tuesday and is available to order anywhere books are sold. We encourage you to buy from Black-owned and independent bookstores. Stay tuned for a video conversation on Tuesday between Michael Harriot and Damario on ContrabandCamp.

It was late 2021, and I was spending most of my time on Zoom calls with my team discussing the speeches I would have to give, the presentations we would need to make, how to influence the press coverage of the lawsuit, fundraising, and how to rally the network of descendants. It was a busy time. But as we were working, I started to think about how we had gotten to this point.

There I was, working with a united, passionate team of people of all races, genders, and backgrounds, all committed to justice for Greenwood. Behind us stood a community of descendants and North Tulsans, like Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, Chief Amusan, and Terry Bradford, ready to raise money, take to the streets, and rally behind the cause. Behind them stood an army of national attorneys, journalists, politicians, academics, and activists like Bryan Stevenson, Joy Reid, Roland Martin, Tiffany Cross, Barbara Arnwine, and Angela Rye. Finally, behind everyone stood three centenarian survivors—­people who could have easily said, “Leave me alone, I want to enjoy the final years of my life in peace,” but instead volunteered to go to court, travel to Washington, D.C., and go on television to be the faces of our cause.

That League of Extraordinary People did not come together in a vacuum.

As my extended team worked, an idea kept nagging at me. While the fight for reparations on a national level would go on, the outcomes in Tulsa, Palm Springs, and other locales suggested that the most promising avenue for obtaining reparations for traumatized populations might involve activism at the local level. But how could I teach Black leaders and communities to build what we had built in Greenwood?

The more I thought about it, the clearer the answer became. If you want to build something like what we have, you can’t start today. You have to go back to the Greenwood that existed before urban renewal. From there, you have to go back to Greenwood before the Massacre. But Greenwood didn’t spring from the dust, either. It was born because of ideas that had existed in the minds of Black people for hundreds of years. To understand that, you have to go back in time to the all-­Black towns of Oklahoma, and from there to the Black Creeks, and other Black Indians of the Five Tribes. There’s a common thread, an enduring set of principles, linking our ancestors to the community that surrounds me today.

As I was building a presentation to tell the story behind our historic lawsuit, that idea kept creeping back into my mind. Finally, it hit me: The presentation had to be built around those fundamental ideas! If anyone outside Tulsa was going to understand what made Greenwood so special—­and what makes our community so special today—­we had to show them why Greenwood was special. That was the thought process that led to the five principles that I call ThinkGreenwood:

• 1. Community Love. Loving ourselves, our neighbors, and our communities. Building spaces where everyone is valued, protected, and empowered. Honoring our elders, investing in our youth, and lifting one another as we climb.

• 2. Freedom Mind State. Self-­determination. We lead our lives, build our institutions, teach our history, grow and protect our wealth, and tell our stories on our own terms.

• 3. Ownership. We own our lives, stories, businesses, land, and ideas. But this is not just about assets. It is about reclaiming our minds, bodies, and futures from white supremacy, racial capitalism, and Euro-American norms that elevate individualism over the collective good.

• 4. Wealth Circulation. We pool our resources, invest in our own institutions, and practice cooperative economics rooted in intergenerational learning. We circulate both dollars and wisdom, understanding that real wealth includes money, health, time, knowledge, and the freedom to live without constant extraction.

• 5. Willful Resilience. We don’t simply endure hardship. Each time we’re challenged, we emerge stronger, smarter, and more united.

ThinkGreenwood is a framework for Black power and reparatory justice that draws from the history and legacy of Greenwood, the historical events that made Greenwood possible, and most of all, the people who brought Greenwood to life. It combines legal advocacy, genealogy, history, community organizing, political and narrative advocacy, and economic justice to create sustainable pathways ­ toward racial justice and collective prosperity. Through the devastation of the Massacre, the insult of “urban removal,” decades of civic malice and racist public policy, and even the threats of MAGA, Greenwood’s principles of self-determination, collective economics, and mutual support remain just as strong as the day O. W. Gurley broke ground on Greenwood’s first buildings back in 1906.

ThinkGreenwood is my gift to every Black town, neighborhood, and community in this country where people seek to repair past harms and give themselves and their children a fair chance at a better life. It’s a blueprint for Black Power in the modern era that any group can use to build the same indomitable foundation that’s enabled Tulsa’s community to stay strong and united through decades of setbacks and disappointments.

Let’s break those principles down.