Tulsa Race Massacre lawsuit tossed out by Oklahoma Supreme Court

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, US (AA) - The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday filed by the remaining survivors of the deadly 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre for reparations after one of the darkest chapters of violence against Blacks in US history, according to media outlets.

The suit was originally filed in 2021 by survivors Viola Fletcher, Lessie Benningfield Randle and Hughes Van Ellis, who died last year.

A district court judge in the state of Oklahoma previously dismissed the case, saying that the city of Tulsa "simply being connected to a historical event does not provide a person with unlimited rights to seek compensation."

The case was appealed to the state's highest court, which acknowledged that the "grievance with the social and economic inequities created by the Tulsa Race Massacre is legitimate and worthy of merit."

But in the end, the case, in which the plaintiffs argued that they had rights for reparations under the city's public nuisance statute, was tossed out.

"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 plaintiffs also argued that the city of Tulsa was getting "unjust enrichment" by promoting the site of the massacre as a tourist attraction "without returning any of those benefits to members of the community."

The race riots began on May 31, 1921 in the Black north Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood, also known as Black Wall Street. They lasted for two days and saw a white mob burn more than 1,400 businesses and homes to the ground, leaving nearly 10,000 residents homeless.

Official historical records indicate that 26 Black people and 10 white people were killed, but historians estimated that number was closer to 300 people, most of them Black.