Survivors and descendants of those killed in the 1921 Tulsa massacre made a claim Tuesday when white mobs looted and set fire to buildings in a developed financial district known as Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street.
The main plaintiff, 105-year-old Lizzie Benningfield Randall, was a child at the time and “her neighborhood was burning because she was constantly terrorizing,” she said, “feeling flashbacks of black bodies on the street,” the complaint states. He is one of only two well-known survivors.
Announcing the lawsuits, Attorney Damariyo Solomon-Simon told a news conference on Tuesday that “no one has been held accountable to date.” “Someone recently said that the perpetrators were almost gone. Well, they ran with it. To this day. “
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One of the most civil disturbances since the Civil War, the Tulsa massacre began on the morning of May 31, 1921, when a black man was arrested and sent to prison at Tulsa County Courthouse. According to a 2001 report from the Oklahoma Commission’s 2001 study of the Tulsa race riots, a large group of armed black men rushed to the court to defend the man.
June 15, 2020: Freeman Culver stands in front of a list of murals named after businesses destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (AP Photo / Sue Ogroki)
By June 1, 1921, the lawsuit filed Tuesday claimed that “a large, angry white mob, including some members of the Tulsa Police Department, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department, and the National Guard, had snatched 35 square-blocks.” All-Black Greenwood District, “Killing hundreds of black residents, inflicting thousands more injuries, burning more than a thousand homes and businesses and stealing residents’ personal property.”
The 48-page lawsuit names seven defendants, including Tulsa City, current Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalo, and the Oklahoma Military Department. It was filed under the state’s Public Harassment Act, which the state’s attorney general used last year to force opioid drug manufacturers Johnson and Johnson to pay the state 5 5,465 million in damages.
In the years following the massacre, city and county officials actively thwarted community efforts to rebuild and neglect the Greenwood and predominantly black North Tulsa community in favor of the extremely white parts of the city, according to the lawsuit.
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Even today, unemployment in the black community of Tulsa is twice that of White Tulsa; The average household income for black residents is half that of whites; Black students are likely to be suspended from school nine times, and the life expectancy of North Tulsa residents is 11 years lower than the rest of the city’s lifetime, Tulsa Attorney Steven Terrell said.
“We’re not just talking about what happened in 1921. We’re still talking about what’s happening,” Solomon-Simon told reporters. “We believe this lawsuit will be successful because there is no question of being harassed by the defendants.”
The massacre received new attention in recent months after President Trump chose Tulsa as the venue for the rally amid ongoing police rampage and racial violence over racial violence. Trump moved the date of his June rally in the city’s Greenwood District to commemorate the end of slavery so as not to coincide with the June celebration.
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The plaintiffs want the defendants to “reduce racial inequality, economic inequality, insecurity, and their illegal actions and the mistakes made in 1921 to the shocking public nuisance and continue 99 years after the massacre.”
The lawsuit does not mention the amount of money demanded by the plaintiff, but asks the court to declare that the public nuisance created by the defendants is capable of being reduced “by the cost of money and labor.” They want a scholarship program to be established for the descendants of the victims of the massacre and they want the residents of Black Tulsa to prioritize the city’s contract for the next 99 years.
The lawsuit also calls for a detailed account of the property lost and stolen in the massacre, the construction of a hospital in North Tulsa and the creation of a compensation fund for the victims of the Tulsa massacre. It seeks immunity from all city and county taxes and utility costs for the next 99 years for the descendants of those killed, injured or lost property in the massacre.
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A statement issued by the Oklahoma National Guard Public Affairs Public Affairs to Fox 23 in response to the proceedings in this case.
The role played by the National Guard during the events in the Greenwood District during late May and early June 1921 is widely accounted for. However, the historical record shows that a handful of guards guarded Tulsa’s arsenal and inside weapons from more than 300 rioters. “These guards’ actions have significantly reduced the number of deaths in the Greenwood district. In the days following the riots, the Oklahoma Guardsmen rearranged the area and prevented further attacks by both black and white tulsi. The Oklahoma National Guard will not comment further on the matter due to pending lawsuits. “
The Associated Press contributes to this report.
