Last known survivors of Tulsa Race Massacre challenge Oklahoma high court decision
OKLAHOMA CITY — Attorneys for the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday to reconsider the case. 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 acts of violence against black people in American history. Some 300 black people were killed; more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools, and churches were destroyed; and thousands were forced into internment camps supervised by the National Guard when a white mob, including several law enforcement officials, looted and burned the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street.
In a petition for review, the women asked the court to reconsider its 8-1 vote, which reversed the decision of a district judge in Tulsa 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 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.”
Attorney Damario Solomon Simmons has also called on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the massacre of the Emmett to The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows old cases of violent crimes against black people committed before 1970 to be reopened. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
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.