In this 1921 image provided by the Library of Congress, smoke rises over Tulsa, Okla.
Alvin C. Krupnick Co./AP
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Alvin C. Krupnick Co./AP
In this 1921 image provided by the Library of Congress, smoke rises over Tulsa, Okla.
Alvin C. Krupnick Co./AP
An Oklahoma judge has filed a damages lawsuit for the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, spurring efforts by survivors of segregationist rage to gain some measure of legal justice. deadly race.
Judge Caroline Wall on Friday dismissed with prejudice in favor of a lawsuit that attempted to compel the city and others to pay compensation for the destruction of the once-prosperous Black district known as Greenwood.
The order comes in a case brought by three attack survivors, all over 100 years old, who are suing in 2020 hoping to see what their lawyers call “justice in their lives.” their lives”.
A spokeswoman for the city of Tulsa and attorneys for survivors – Lessie Benningfield Randle, Viola Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Wall, a Tulsa County Court, wrote in a brief order that she dropped the case based on arguments from the city, the regional chamber of commerce, and other state and local government agencies. She ruled against the defendants’ motion to dismiss and allowed the case to continue last year.
Local judicial elections in Oklahoma are technically nonpartisan, but Wall has described himself as a “Constitutional Conservative” in past campaign questions.
The lawsuit was brought under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, which said the actions of white mobs killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed what was once the nation’s most prosperous Black commercial district. continues to influence the city today.
Tulsa’s long history of racial segregation and tension is thought to be traced back to the massacre in which an angry white mob descended on the 35-block area, looting, killing, and burning it. . In addition to those killed, thousands more were left homeless and living in a hastily constructed internment camp.
The lawsuit argues that the city and insurance companies never compensated the victims, and that the massacre ultimately resulted in racial and economic disparities that persist to this day. . It seeks a detailed accounting of property and wealth lost or stolen in the massacre, the construction of a hospital north of Tulsa and the establishment of a victim compensation fund, among other things.
An attorney for the Chamber of Commerce previously said the massacre was gruesome, but the nuisance it caused no longer continues.
Fletcher, 109 years old and oldest survivor, will release a memoir next month about the life she lived in the shadow of the massacre.
In 2019, Oklahoma’s attorney general used a public nuisance law to force opioid drug maker Johnson & Johnson to pay $465 million in damages to the state. The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned that decision two years later.
