The Oklahoma Supreme Court dealt a blow to advocates seeking justice for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on Wednesday, dismissing a lawsuit brought by the last two living survivors.
The nine-member court upheld a lower court ruling that the plaintiffs’ grievances, while legitimate, did not qualify as a public nuisance under state law.
“The plaintiffs’ allegations do not sufficiently support a claim for unjust enrichment,” the court wrote in its decision.
The lawsuit aimed to compel the city of Tulsa and others to make amends for the destruction of the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood, dubbed “Black Wall Street,” by a white mob in 1921. Over two days of violence on May 31st and June 1st, the mob looted and burned the 30-block district, killing as many as 300 Black residents and forcing thousands into internment camps.
Little remains today except some burned bricks and basement fragments.
Plaintiffs Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, both over 100 years old, filed the suit in 2020 seeking “justice in their lifetime” according to their attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons. A third plaintiff, Hughes Van Ellis, died last year at 102.
The case argued the massacre’s effects linger through ongoing racial and economic disparities, demanding compensation for losses, a new hospital, and a victims fund, among other remedies.
Though the city and insurers never paid victims, the court found the public nuisance claim unsuitable for addressing the massacre’s impacts. The ruling dampens hopes for government atonement for one of America’s worst acts of violence against Black people.
This report has information obtained from The Associated Press