The last two known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre are not giving up in their quest for reparations. On Tuesday, lawyers for Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider the case they dismissed last month and called on the Biden administration to help the two women seek justice, reports the AP.
In a statement read by McKenzie Haynes, a member of their legal team, the survivors said, “Oklahoma, and the United States of America, have failed its Black citizens,” they continued, “With our own eyes, and burned deeply into our memories, we watched white Americans destroy, kill and loot.”
“And despite these obvious crimes against humanity, not one indictment was issued, most insurance claims remain unpaid or were paid for only pennies on the dollar, and Black Tulsans were forced to leave their homes and live in fear.”
They are also calling on President Joe Biden and the Department of Justice to open an investigation based on the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which enables the reopening of cold cases of violent crimes committed against Black people before 1970.
Fletcher and Randle were just children when violent white mobs attacked their Greenwood District Neighborhood, which was so successful it was known as Black Wall Street. Between May 31st and June 1st in 1921, more than 1200 Black businesses and homes along a 35 square block stretch were destroyed and burned to the ground. Thousands of Black people were displaced, more than 800 injured, and as many as 300 people were killed. The massacre ended when the Oklahoma National Guard declared martial law on the afternoon of June 1st. Losses were estimated to be $2 million at the time, which would be about $35 million in today’s currency.
In the ensuing decades, nothing was done to address or even acknowledge the massacre until 1997, when the Oklahoma state legislature established a commission to study the Tulsa Race Massacre. As a result of the commission’s findings, in 2001, state lawmakers created the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act. However, rather than provide reparations, it recommended building a memorial, incentives for Greenwood investment, and a scholarship for low-income Tulsans without including funding for any of these initiatives.
Since 2020, Fletcher and Randle, along with Fletcher’s brother Hughes Van Ellis, who has since passed away, have been fighting a pitched legal battle for restitution. A district court initially dismissed their lawsuit last year, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court moved to dismiss the case last month.
Attorneys for the women argue that under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, the city of Tulsa and others should provide restitution for the harm caused by the massacre. They’ve also argued that Tulsa has benefited from the historic fame of Black Wall Street and that, therefore, any revenue that they get from promoting Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Greenwood Rising History Center should be set aside for the survivors and their descendants.
Vowing to fight on but keenly aware they are running out of time, Fletcher and Randle also said in their statement, “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.”
