Tulsa massacre survivors challenge dismissal of reparations lawsuit, call on President Biden to take action – Essence

The last two known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre are not giving up their quest for reparations. Attorneys for Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle on Tuesday 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, AP reports.

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 their black citizens,” they continued. “With our own eyes, and deeply etched in our memories, we have seen white Americans destroy, kill and pillage.”

“And despite these clear crimes against humanity, no charges were filed, most insurance claims went unpaid or were paid for pennies on the dollar, and black Tulsa residents were forced from their homes and lived in fear.”

They are also calling on President Joe Biden and the Justice Department to launch an investigation under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows for the reopening of old cases involving violent crimes against black people committed before 1970.

Fletcher and Randle were just children when violent white mobs attacked their Greenwood District Neighborhood, which was so successful that it became known as Black Wall Street. Between May 31 and June 1, 1921, more than 1,200 black businesses and homes along a 35-square-block strip were destroyed and burned to the ground. Thousands of black people were displaced, more than 800 were injured, and as many as 300 were killed. The carnage ended when the Oklahoma National Guard declared martial law on the afternoon of June 1. Losses were estimated at the time at $2 million, which would be about $35 million in today’s money.

In the decades that followed, nothing was done to address or even acknowledge the massacre, until 1997, when the Oklahoma state legislature established a commission to study the Tulsa Massacre. As a result of the commission’s findings, state lawmakers enacted the Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act of 1921 in 2001. However, instead of providing reparations, the commission recommended the construction of a memorial, incentives for investment in Greenwood, and a college scholarship for low-income Tulsa residents, with no funding for any of these initiatives.

Since 2020, Fletcher and Randle, along with Fletcher’s late brother Hughes Van Ellis, have been fighting a fierce legal battle for restitution. A district court initially dismissed their lawsuit last year, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided to dismiss the case last month.

Attorneys for the women argue that the city of Tulsa and other cities should pay damages for the damage caused by the massacre under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law. They also argue that Tulsa has profited from the historical fame of Black Wall Street and that any revenue it receives from promoting Greenwood, Black Wall Street and the Greenwood Rising History Center should therefore be set aside for the survivors and their descendants.

Fletcher and Randle vowed to fight on, but were well aware that time was running out. In their statement, they also said, “We are deeply disappointed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss our lawsuit and are heartbroken that we may not live to see the State of Oklahoma, or the United States of America, honestly confront and right the wrongs of one of the darkest days in American history.”