OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Lawyers for the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court Tuesday to reconsider the case they dismissed last month and called on the Biden administration to help the two women seek justice.
Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, are the last known survivors of one of the worst anti-black violence in U.S. history. As many as 300 black people were killed; more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches were destroyed; and thousands were forced into internment camps run by the National Guard as a white mob, including several law enforcement officials, looted and burned the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street.
In a petition for new hearing, the women asked the court to reconsider an 8-1 vote upholding a Tulsa district judge’s decision last year to dismiss the case.
“Oklahoma and the United States of America have failed their black citizens,” the two women said in a statement read by McKenzie Haynes, a member of their legal team. “With our own eyes and deep in our memories, we saw white Americans destroy, kill and plunder.”
“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.”
Attorney Damario Solomon Simmons also called on the U.S. Justice Department to launch an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows old cases of violent crimes against black people committed before 1970 to be reopened. A message left with the Justice Department seeking comment was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit was an attempt under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law to force the city of Tulsa and others to pay damages for the destruction. Attorneys also argued that Tulsa had appropriated the historical reputation of Black Wall Street “for its own financial and reputational benefit.” They argue that all money the city receives from promoting Greenwood or Black Wall Street, including revenue from the Greenwood Rising History Center, should go into a compensation fund for victims and their descendants.
