OKLAHOMA CITY — Attorneys representing the last remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre asked the Biden Administration on Tuesday to help the two women receive justice after their lawsuit seeking restitution was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last month.
On Tuesday, attorneys for Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, called on the Biden Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.
The Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 destroyed a bustling, economically vibrant community in the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street. Hundreds of businesses, homes, schools, and churches were looted by deputized white mobs. The official death toll of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre are unclear; it is estimated 300 Blacks people were killed, but some historians have suggested the number of deaths could be much higher.
Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of a district court judge’s decision last year to dismiss the survivors’ lawsuit. The case was brought under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law.
More on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and lawsuit.
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