By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – Oklahoma’s highest court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by the last two known living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre seeking reparations for the violence and destruction that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of black people.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court last year upheld a judge’s decision to dismiss the case, saying the state’s public nuisance law could not be relied on to address the lingering effects of “unjust, violent and tragic moments in our history.” to grab.
It is estimated that as many as 300 people, most of whom were black, died on May 31, 1921, when a large white mob overran Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood, a wealthy community nicknamed “Black Wall Street.”
Attorneys for Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Fletcher, 110, argued that through the massacre, the city of Tulsa and others created a public nuisance of racial inequality, economic disparity and trauma that needed to be reduced.
Along with a third survivor of the massacre who died while the case was pending, Fletcher’s brother Hughes Van Ellis, they argued that the effects of the massacre are still being felt today and that the city and others should be forced to compensate victims , replace buildings and return land to the black community.
But justice Dustin Rowe wrote that while plaintiffs’ “grievances are legitimate, they do not fall within the scope of our state’s public nuisance statute,” which was limited to issues involving criminal or property conflicts.
“The ongoing blight within the Greenwood community stemming from the massacre implies intergenerational and societal inequalities that can only be resolved by policymakers – and not the courts,” wrote Rowe, an appointee of Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Seven other justices joined Rowe’s opinion, while a ninth, Justice James Edmondson, dissented in part. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Greenwood area had more than 10,000 black residents at a time when racial segregation was strict and the Ku Klux Klan had a strong membership in Oklahoma.
The massacre began after a white woman told police that a black man had grabbed her arm in an elevator in a downtown commercial building, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Police arrested the man, who the Tulsa Tribune subsequently reported had tried to assault the woman.
White residents surrounded the courthouse and demanded that the man be turned over. A white man tried to disarm a black World War I veteran and a shot rang out, sparking violence that destroyed 35 blocks of Greenwood.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
