In a Martin Luther King Day Washington Post article I noticed a short mention of a gold-plated medal given by the Oklahoma state legislature to survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot.
-Editor
"Reparations to survivors and their descendants were never paid. Instead, the Oklahoma legislature passed a law to "facilitate the redevelopment of the Greenwood area" and presented each survivor with a gold-plated medal bearing the state seal."
Online sources say the medals were awarded to 118 people.
-Editor
"In search of the administration of justice, the Oklahoma legislature created the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1997. The eleven-member committee identified survivors, created a historical account of the riot, and favored recommendations for reparations. In 2001, although the state government rejected the recommendation and only issued each of the survivors with a gold-plated medal with the state seal, several legislators privately donated $15,000 toward a private reparations fund for survivors."
From Wikipedia:
"In March 2001, each of the 118 known survivors of the riot still alive at the time, the youngest of whom was 85, was given a gold-plated medal bearing the state seal, as had been approved by bi-partisan state leaders"
So can anyone locate an image of one of these medals? Do we have any numismatic information about them? Who was the artist? Where were they made? Have any made their way to museums or the numismatic market?
-Editor
To read the complete article, see:
The ‘whitewashing' of Black Wall Street
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/17/tulsa-massacre-greenwood-black-wall-street-gentrification/)
To read the other referenced articles, see:
Tulsa Race Riot 1921
(http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm;jsessionid=f8301182021610948181388?migration=8&topic=8&id=465287&type=image&bhcp=1)
Tulsa race massacre
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre)
For information on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, see:
https://www.tulsa2021.org/
Wayne Homren, Editor
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