The system has once again failed the Black community. An Oklahoma judge dismissed the reparations lawsuit filed by the victims and descendants of the Tulsa race massacre and allied organizations, the Washington Post reported.
Filed in the Tulsa County District Court in September 2020, the plaintiffs demanded the court prohibit the defendants from benefitting from the massacre.
The plaintiffs also asked that the victims and descendants be compensated fairly through a created Victims Compensation Fund, adding any funds the defendants acquired due to appropriating the massacre’s legacy be transported to the Victims Compensation Funds.
Unfortunately, Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline Wall discarded the case, siding with the city and other local agencies’ argument that the plaintiffs’ reparations request would dampen the government’s sturdy financial standing — stymieing the everlasting efforts to right a 102-year wrong.
Sara Solfanelli, one of the attorneys for the survivors, shared with the Washington Post her disappointment with Wall dismissing the case.
“Black Americans, especially Black Tulsans, carry the weight of intergenerational racial trauma day in and day out—a weight they cannot relinquish or cavalierly dismiss,” Solfanelli said. “The dismissal of this case is just one more example of how America’s, including Tulsa’s, legacy is disproportionately and unjustly borne by the Black community.”
She and her legal team are planning to appeal Wall’s decision.
The defendants in the suit are the City of Tulsa, Tulsa Regional Chamber, Tulsa Development Authority, Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, Board of County Commissioners for Tulsa County, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado and the Oklahoma Military Department.
The plaintiffs are Tulsa race massacre survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle, non-profit Historic Vernon A.M.E. Church, Laurel Stradford (great-granddaughter of victim J.B. Stratford), Ellouise Cochrane-Price (daughter of victim Clarence Rowland and cousin of Dick Rowland), Tedra Williams (granddaughter of Wess Young), Don M. Adams (nephew and next friend of Dr. A.C. Jackson), Don W. Adams (grandson of H.A. Guess), Stephen Williams (grandson of A.J. Smitherman) and the Tulsa African Ancestral Society.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit under the Oklahoma public nuisance law, arguing that despite the horrific Tulsa Massacre, the defendants failed to take any action to reconstruct a once-thriving Greenwood. But they had no problem “appropriating the trauma and terror suffered by the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Massacre for their economic benefit at Plaintiffs’ expense.”
They were frank in the lawsuit about how the defendants exploited the massacre.
“Their purpose is to promote tourism and economic development by appropriating the name ‘Black Wall Street,’ along with its cultural and historical significance and through use of the names and likenesses of survivors — predominantly for the benefit of white-owned or controlled Tulsa businesses and organizations,” the lawsuit read.
In addition to not attempting to rebuild, the plaintiffs said the defendants didn’t even apologize for their part in the traumatic event despite them having many chances.
The plaintiffs requested a record of the wealth and property lost in the racial attack and the construction of a hospital in north Tulsa.
However, the defendants didn’t have a sympathetic bone, arguing they weren’t liable for “civil disobedience, riot, insurrection or rebellion or the failure to provide, providing police, law enforcement or fire protection.”
In a quote to the Associated Press, Chamber of Commerce attorney John Tucker basically told the victims and descendants to get over it since it happened “100 years ago.”
But what the heartless city officials and agencies are trying to overlook is the fact that after a jealous and racist white mob stormed a thriving Greenwood on May 31, 1921, to burn Black businesses built by hardworking Black entrepreneurs and kill hundreds of innocent Black citizens, the government and city officials (as well as well-known business leaders) failed to invest and rebuild the formerly thriving community. They even blocked Black people’s efforts to reconstruct.
The city’s failure to return north Tulsa to its glory — The Black Wallstreet — led to high unemployment and poverty rates among Blacks, according to Human Rights Watch.
Yet, according to the defendants, it’s not their fault. But they have no problem benefitting from the trauma victims and descendants will never heal from.
The defendants may view Tulsa as a tourist spot. But the real educated ones will forever see it as the city government’s failure and the place where one of the most pivotal moments in Black history occurred that led to the African Americans’ fight for justice and equality.
