The last two known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre are renewing their pursuit of reparations. On Tuesday, attorneys for Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle petitioned the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider its recent dismissal of their case and called on President Biden’s administration to intervene, according to reports by the Associated Press.
In a poignant statement delivered by McKenzie Haynes, a member of their legal team, the survivors expressed their disappointment with both the state of Oklahoma and the United States. “Oklahoma, and the United States of America, have failed its Black citizens,” the statement read. “With our own eyes, and burned deeply into our memories, we watched white Americans destroy, kill, and loot.”
The survivors recalled the lack of justice following the massacre, noting that no indictments were issued, most insurance claims remained unpaid or were settled for minimal amounts, and Black residents of Tulsa were forced to abandon their homes and live in fear.
Fletcher and Randle are urging President Biden and the Department of Justice to investigate the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007. This act allows for the reopening of cold cases involving violent crimes against Black individuals committed before 1970.
Also, read; College Students Tased by Atlanta Police During George Floyd Protests to Receive $2 Million Settlement
The Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, was a thriving Black community that suffered catastrophic destruction when violent white mobs attacked between May 31 and June 1, 1921. The massacre resulted in the destruction of over 1,200 Black businesses and homes, the displacement of thousands, injuries to more than 800 people, and the deaths of up to 300 individuals. The Oklahoma National Guard imposed martial law to end the violence. The financial losses from the massacre were estimated at $2 million in 1921, equivalent to about $35 million today.
For decades, the massacre was neither addressed nor acknowledged until 1997, when the Oklahoma state legislature established a commission to study it. The commission’s findings led to the creation of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act in 2001. However, instead of providing reparations, the act recommended building a memorial, offering investment incentives in Greenwood, and establishing a scholarship for low-income Tulsans, without allocating funding for these initiatives.
Since 2020, Fletcher and Randle, alongside Fletcher’s now-deceased brother Hughes Van Ellis, have been engaged in a legal battle for restitution. Their lawsuit was initially dismissed by a district court last year, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed it last month. Their lawyers argue that under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, Tulsa and others should compensate for the harm caused by the massacre. They also contend that Tulsa has profited from the historic significance of Black Wall Street and that revenues from promoting Greenwood and the Greenwood Rising History Center should benefit the survivors and their descendants.
Facing the reality of their advancing age, Fletcher and Randle remain determined to seek justice. “We are profoundly disappointed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision to reject our lawsuit and are deeply saddened that we may not live long enough to see the State of Oklahoma, or the United States of America, honestly confront and right the wrongs of one of the darkest days of American history,” they stated.
