The historic quest for justice by the last two survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre ended with a state court ruling on Wednesday.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss the case, bringing final legal closure for 109-year-old Recy Benningfield Randle and 110-year-old Viola Ford Fletcher.
The women, who were young children at the time, claimed the destruction of what was then known as “Black Wall Street” and the massacre of up to 300 African-Americans by a white mob constituted a continuing nuisance and sought compensation.
The ruling brings to an end a lawsuit filed by Rundle and Fletcher in 2020. Last year, another survivor of the massacre, Fletcher's brother, Hughes Van Ellis, died at the age of 102.
In the early 20th century, Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood was a culturally and economically successful area that became known as Black Wall Street. On May 31, 1921, a white mob gathered outside the Tulsa County Courthouse where a young black man was being held for allegedly assaulting a young white woman.
White officers appointed to the city attacked the neighborhood from the ground and the air. Within two days, Greenwood was gone. Thirty-five city blocks were reduced to ashes, 300 residents were killed, and thousands were left homeless. The attack wiped out generations of wealth built during a time of intense racial discrimination.
No individuals or entities were ever held accountable, and survivors received no formal compensation for their losses.
The lawsuit, filed under Oklahoma's public nuisance law, argues that the effects of the massacre continue to be deeply felt more than a century later. Damario Solomon Simmons, the survivors' lead attorney, said the city's ongoing racial disparities, economic inequality and trauma among survivors and their descendants are evidence of the massacre's long-lasting effects.
Authorities say the massacre was horrific but that they should not be held responsible for what happened in 1921.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.