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Reparations Lawsuit By Last Two Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors Rejected By Oklahoma Supreme Court [1]

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Date: 2024-06-13  

The headline says it all: “Oklahoma Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit From Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors.” On Wednesday, June 12, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by two of the last-known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, who sought reparations for the attack.

The attack occurred in Tulsa’s Greenwood district – also known as Black Wall Street -- at the time one of the wealthiest Black neighborhoods in the U.S. White mobs burned the neighborhood to the ground, destroying hundreds of homes, and killing as many as 300 people. Many lost businesses were never rebuilt.

Survivors Hughes Van Ellis, Viola Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle initially filed the lawsuit in 2021. Ellis died last year at the age of 102.

The state’s Supreme Court which acknowledged Wednesday that the “grievance with the social and economic inequities created by the Tulsa Race Massacre is legitimate and worthy of merit.”

“However, the law does not permit us to extend the scope of our public nuisance doctrine beyond what the Legislature has authorized to afford Plaintiffs the justice they are seeking,” the court wrote in its decision.

“The destruction of forty-square blocks of property on the night of May 31, 1921 through murder and arson clearly meets the definition of a public nuisance under Oklahoma law. Faithful application of the law compels the conclusion that Mother Randle and Mother Fletcher have stated a claim for relief,” attorneys for Fletcher and Benningfield Randle said in a statement after the decision.

“They are entitled to a trial. Yet the Court held that Mother Randle and Mother Fletcher have asked the Court to decide a ‘political’ question that is beyond the purview of the Court,” the attorneys added.

CNN reported that “Insurance companies later denied many claims filed by Black business owners over what today would be worth tens of millions of dollars in property damage, including the destruction of two Black hospitals and 1,256 residences, according to the Greenwood Cultural Center, CNN previously reported.

“Attorneys for Fletcher and Benningfield Randle said in their statement that they plan to file a petition for rehearing with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, asking the Court to reconsider its decision. They also called on the US Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/13/2246466/-Reparations-Lawsuit-By-Last-Two-Tulsa-Race-Massacre-Survivors-Rejected-By-Oklahoma-Supreme-Court?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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