Transformation Church Pastor Michael Todd presented three survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre with $200,000 checks at an outdoor church service on June 20, a century after the deadly violence claimed hundreds of lives.
“It’s reparations season and change starts in the church,” Todd said before the congregation. Todd and his wife Natalie are Lead Pastors of Transformation Church based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Todd explained that he asked the team at the church to track down surviving members of the 1921 massacre.
“I told the team. I said ‘find me every living survivor that survived this massacre.’ And they begin to search. And I said though, the most devastating thing that was stolen from people where their homes,” Todd said.
The violence in Tulsa began after a Black teen was accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator. At some point during the elevator ride, the woman screamed and the teen subsequently fled the scene.
Rumors swirled about what had taken place, and after the teen was arrested, a white mob surrounded the courthouse, demanding the boy be handed over. A group of armed Black men showed up to help protect the teen but when the sheriff declined their help, and the group turned back, they were followed by the white mob back to the Greenwood District.
Over an 18-hour period between May 31 and June 1, white mobs attacked, burned and looted the thriving business district, Black Wall Street. Thousands of survivors were left homeless, and reports of what occurred were largely silenced within the media. As many as 300 people were killed, while 800 were injured and numerous homes, schools and businesses were destroyed. No white person has ever been charged in connection with any of the violent acts committed that night.
Todd welcomed three survivors of the massacre to the stage, and said they are the only living survivors of the carnage inflicted by white mobs.
“We have all three,” he said.
The survivors included 100-year-old Hughes V. Ellis, 107-year-old Viola Fletcher and 106-year-old Leslie Randle.
“Thank you for appearing before Congress,” Todd told the survivors. “Thank you for standing up. Thank you for being here today; because of you, this is able to happen. I’m a young black man who took over a church from a white man who built it in North Tulsa. That couldn’t have happened if y’all didn’t survive. And today we can’t restore everything that has been stolen from you. But today, we can put a seed in the ground and the one thing we know about a seed is when you put a seed in the ground and it looks broken and it looks destroyed, that is the environment that growth happens in.”
Todd spoke about the devastation of losing one’s home and said that in considering what he could do for the survivors, he searched online for the median price of a home in Tulsa.
He explained, “$200,000 was the number that came up. So today on behalf of Transformation Church, God and transformation nation, each one of you is getting a check for $200,000. “It’s reparations season,” Todd declared.
In total, the church gave away $1 million to the massacre survivors and nonprofit groups during the service, including a $100,000 check to AJ Johnson, owner of Oasis Fresh Market, which provides fresh fruits and other groceries to an underserved community, $50,000 to the Terrance Crutcher Foundation, $50,000 to Build in Tulsa, $100,000 to One Race Movement and $100,000 to Greenwood Cultural Center.
