Justice Department announces review of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre (note same time period as "killers of the Flower Moon" in the same state). I kind of get it, but I also don't. Its been 103 years. Everyone is dead. Evidence is going to be scant, and costs material.
Oklahoma CityAP —
The Justice Department announced Monday it plans to launch a review of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, an attack by a white mob on a thriving Black district that is considered one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.
The review was launched under a federal cold-case initiative that has led to prosecutions of some Civil Rights Era cases, although Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said they have “no expectation” there is anyone living who could be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry. Still, the announcement of a first-ever federal probe into the massacre was embraced by descendants of survivors who have long criticized city and state leaders for not doing more to compensate those affected by the attack.
Clarke said the agency plans to issue a public report detailing its findings by the end of the year.
Related articleA century after the Tulsa race massacre, ‘you still have a community that’s struggling’
“We acknowledge descendants of the survivors, and the victims continue to bear the trauma of this act of racial terrorism,” Clarke said during her remarks in Washington.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the last known survivors of the massacre, 110-year-old Viola Fletcher and 109-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, described Clarke’s announcement as a “joyous occasion.”
“It is about time,” said Solomon-Simmons, flanked by descendants of massacre survivors. “It only took 103 years, but this is a joyous occasion, a momentous day, an amazing opportunity for us to make sure that what happened here in Tulsa is understood for what it was — the largest crime scene in the history of this country.”
As many as 300 Black people were killed; more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches were destroyed; and thousands were forced into internment camps overseen by the National Guard when a white mob, including some deputized by authorities, looted and burned the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street.
