‘Everyone wants actual accountability,’ attorney for Tulsa Race Massacre survivors says as DOJ visits site

By CNN Newsource

Published October 17, 2024 3:28 PM

By Omar Jimenez and Cindy Von Quednow, CNN

(CNN) — The survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre want the individuals who carried out the violence “to be identified,” an attorney representing them said Thursday, days after the Department of Justice began interviewing survivors and descendants as part of the first-ever federal probe into the Oklahoma massacre.

Even if they have died, “people want to know,” attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons said at the news conference. Department of Justice officials met with survivors and “first-generation descendants” of the massacre over the last two days, Solomon-Simmons said. The department announced it would launch a civil rights review into the massacre at the end of September.

Solomon-Simmons said he and the survivors have high hopes for the investigation, which began in recent weeks.

“It was very clear from everyone they’ve met with over the last 48 hours, including the survivors, that everyone wants a full investigation,” he said. “Everyone wants actual accountability for the massacre.”

The attorney then shared a statement he said was from the survivors, reading, in part, “We pray that the DOJ will do its job and hold those accountable who perpetrated this unspeakable crime. … Too many Greenwood residents have died without any remedy, any respect.”

“We are weary, but God has brought us this far for a reason,” Solomon-Simmons read. “We pray that the DOJ will finally bring accountability within our reach and that we are alive to see it.”

In 1921, Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood was a thriving Black-owned business district. On May 31, 1921, a White mob laid waste to about 35 blocks of the neighborhood within 16 hours, arresting thousands of Black residents, while robbing, beating and killing others, CNN previously reported.

This week, DOJ officials also gathered evidence at the site of the massacre, according to Solomon-Simmons.

The DOJ launched the investigation under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the agency to look into civil rights crimes before 1980 that resulted in death.

“We acknowledge descendants of the survivors, and the victims continue to bear the trauma of this act of racial terrorism. We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said as she announced the investigation in late September.

The DOJ instead will be examining “available documents, witness accounts, scholarly and historical research” and more on the massacre. The department hopes to complete its overall review by the end of the year.

On Thursday, Solomon-Simmons and others encouraged Tulsa residents to turn over any documents, diaries and pictures, or share their or their relatives’ stories related to the massacre.

Solomon-Simmons was flanked by survivors’ descendants and US Rep. Al Green of Texas, who has been an advocate for the families.

Green announced he plans to introduce individual bills for each of the survivors for punitive damages, along with compensatory damages.

“The federal government has to step up. That’s what the federal government is for. We have to do our job,” Green said of the planned legislation. “Our job consists of making sure we provide the justice by way of some emolument to the persons who have suffered.”

In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit arguing the remaining survivors of the massacre should be compensated by the city for damages.

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. Fletcher is 110 years old and Randle is 109. Randle turns 110 next month, and Green says he has instructed his staff to fly a flag over the US Capitol to honor her that day.

Their lawsuit was previously dismissed by an Oklahoma district court judge, who agreed with the city of Tulsa that “simply being connected to a historical event does not provide a person with unlimited rights to seek compensation.”

Attorneys for Fletcher and Benningfield Randle believed the survivors were at least entitled to a trial.

“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,” the attorneys said in a statement after the state Supreme Court decision.