Descendents And Survivors Of Tulsa Massacre File Lawsuit For Reparations

Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons announced the lawsuit at a press conference Tuesday, telling media outlets “No one, to this day, has been held accountable,” and adding, “someone said recently that the folks that committed the massacre almost got away with it. Well, they did get away with it. Until today.”

The massacre, which will mark its 100th anniversary next year, still affects Black residents of Tulsa, Solomon-Simmons said, and the lawsuit alleges it is a public nuisance, and that the nuisance has never been abated.

Local attorney Steven Terrill said Black people in Tulsa are still twice as likely as their white neighbors to be unemployed and Black families have a median household income only 50% of white families, according to the Associated Press.

According to the filed complaint, 105-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle is the lead plaintiff and one of only two known massacre survivors still alive today, and she is joined in the suit by Vernon A.M.E, a historic Black church said to be the only Black-owned building that survived the massacre, and the descendants of both survivors and victims.

The suit alleges Randle still has flashbacks from the massacre, like seeing bodies “stacked up on the street as her neighborhood was burning,” and has “struggled financially, emotionally and socially” because of what she went through in 1921.

Named plaintiffs include the city, the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Tulsa Development Authority, the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners for Tulsa County and Sheriff Vic Regaldo in his capacity as sheriff along with the Oklahoma Military Department for not only allegedly enabling the massacre to happen but also hindering the redevelopment of Greenwood afterward.