Oklahoma judge REFUSES to authorize reparations for victims of infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

An Oklahoma judge has refused to approve reparations for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which nearly 300 black people were killed and their livelihoods burned to the ground by a white mob.

Lessie Benningfield Randle, 108, Viola Fletcher, 109, and her brother, Hughes Van Ellis, 102, are the last known survivors of the massacre – and are locked in a years-long legal battle over reparations.

Their lawsuit against the City of Tulsa sought financial and other reparations — including a 99-year tax exemption for Tulsa residents who are descendants of victims of the massacre in Greenwood’s northern Tulsa neighborhood.

Judge Caroline Wall dismissed the case earlier this month — after agreeing with city officials that the plaintiffs “have no unlimited right to damages.”

Tulsa Race Massacre survivors Hughes Van Ellis, left, his sister Viola Fletcher, right, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, center are pictured in 2021

Ruins of Greenwood District after the Race Massacre, Tulsa

It is estimated that as many as 300 people died in the massacre. It is one of the clearest examples of black wealth being decimated, leaving parents with nothing to pass on and generations forced to start from scratch.

The three plaintiffs have now vowed that they “will not leave quietly.”

Damario Solomon-Simmons, their lead attorney and founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, said he had not seen any document outlining Wall’s reasoning for her firing.

He called the lawsuit’s dismissal a “hurtful blow to our quest for justice” and asked the federal government to open an investigation into the massacre.

Solomon-Simmons added, “We were forced to push this case beyond what is required by Oklahoma standards, which is certainly a known circumstance when black Americans ask the US justice system to work for them.

And now Judge Wall has sentenced us to languish on Oklahoma’s appeal. But we are not going quietly. We will keep fighting until our last breath.

Judge Caroline Wall dismissed the case earlier this month — after agreeing with city officials that the plaintiffs “have no unlimited right to damages”

“Like so many black Americans, we carry the weight of intergenerational racial trauma day in and day out.

The dismissal of this case is just one more example of how America’s – and specifically Tulsa’s – legacy of racial harm, racial distress is being disproportionately and unjustly borne by black communities.

“We will not rest until there is justice for Greenwood.”

The lawyer also told CNN, “They have waited 102 years to get justice and reparations for themselves, their families and our community here in Tulsa. And when I got the call… I couldn’t believe it. We were completely blown away.’

Violence broke out in 1921 after a white woman told police that a black man grabbed her arm in an elevator at a commercial building in downtown Tulsa on May 30, 1921.

The next day, police arrested the man, who the Tulsa Tribune said had attempted to assault the woman. White people surrounded the courthouse and demanded the man’s extradition.

World War I veterans were among the black men who went to the courthouse to face the crowd. A white man tried to disarm a black veteran and a shot rang out, sparking even more violence.

According to historical accounts, white people then looted and set fire to buildings and dragged the black people from their beds and beat them.

The whites were deputed by the authorities and instructed to shoot the black residents.

No one has ever been charged with the violence.

The University of Tulsa shows a crowd watching the burning Mt. Zion Baptist Church during the June 1, 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma

The Greenwood neighborhood is in ruins after a mob passes during the carnage of the race

The Tulsa Race massacre on May 31, 1921, killed up to 300 people and burned the city’s black neighborhood known as Greenwood to the ground.

A group of black men marches along the corner of 2nd Street and Main Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Dr. Karlos Hill, a professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told KFOR: “I got very close to history and the people who represent history and certainly the victims, survivors and descendants. .

So the recent rejection of their case, their claims, their rightful claim for reparations for restitution [and] you’re talking about three known survivors, not all survivors… it was really disheartening to see that we don’t have a heart for these victims. We will not find a way to write or legislate legally [what happened].

“When it comes to anti-black racial violence, even the deadliest attack on a black community, we still can’t find the compassion to pay compensation to three survivors or even have a real conversation with the community about what makes a community reparations. do. program would look like today.

“A community has been destroyed. And so if a community was destroyed, a community deserves reparations.”