Attorneys for the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre urged the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently to reconsider their dismissed case and appealed to the Biden administration for help.
Viaola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, are the remaining survivors of the massacre, where up to 300 Black people were killed, and over 1,200 homes, businesses, and churches were destroyed by a white mob in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street.
The women filed a petition for rehearing after the court’s 8-1 vote upheld a district court’s dismissal of their case. “Oklahoma, and the United States of America, have failed its Black citizens,” the women stated, recalling the violence and destruction they witnessed.
Attorney Damario Solomon Simmons called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007. The DOJ declined to comment.
The lawsuit sought restitution under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, arguing Tulsa should compensate for the destruction and the city’s financial gain from promoting the historic Greenwood District. They proposed creating a compensation fund for victims and their descendants from the revenue generated by the Greenwood Rising History Center.
