Equity and Justice in Tulsa County: New Data Highlights Ongoing Challenges

Written By: Rachael Schuit 

(TVLSE, Okla.) The City of Tulsa has an extensive history of historical injustice that continues to manifest inequities for Indigenous and Black community members. Recent data from the Civic Information Index highlights how Tulsa County struggles with equity and justice compared to other counties in the United States.

Read this story on Catalyst News here.

The Civic Information Index measures civic health using 21 datasets from sources like the US Census Bureau, the Department of Education, and Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative. It focuses on four pillars: news and information, civic participation, equity and justice, and health outcomes.

The equity and justice pillar includes indicators like life expectancy, medical debt, youth disengagement, and poverty levels. Tulsa County scored in the 37th percentile for this pillar.

Life expectancy: Tulsa ranked in the 42nd percentile.

Medical debt: Tulsa ranked in the 31st percentile.

Youth disengagement: Tulsa ranked in the 58th percentile.

High poverty levels: Tulsa ranked in the 38th percentile.

As far as the Overall Index, Tulsa County ranks in the 63rd percentile, nearly double Oklahoma’s average of 32. Factors of the higher overall ranking include Tulsa being in the 100th percentile for total news outlets and 99th percentile for giving and philanthropy. 

Yet, racial inequity and injustice persist.

Historical Injustice’s Impact

The impacts of historical injustices such as the Indigenous Probate Scandal and Tulsa Race Massacre are still felt today. 

Indigenous families continue to experience the effects of stolen land, Indian boarding schools, and disproportionate death rates during Oklahoma’s early statehood. The Tulsa Race Massacre left hundreds of Black residents dead and many others homeless, and devastated a once-thriving community. 

Tulsa Equality Indicators provide further insight on Tulsa’s homeless problem, and how it disproportionately impacts BIPOC community members. For example, Native American youth are more than twice as likely to experience homelessness compared to their white peers.

As far as addressing wealth, Tulsa does appear to be slowly moving the needle for Black Tulsans regarding median household income, up nine points since 2018. But the median household income of white households is still 57 percent greater than that of Black households in Tulsa. 

And Indigenous families are not measured on that indicator at all.