DOJ announces first-ever federal review of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

(WASHINGTON) — Over 100 years after a white mob attacked a then-thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Department of Justice announced the first-ever federal probe into the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The attack on the Greenwood neighborhood, often referred to as “Black Wall Street,” left up to 300 people killed and homes and businesses in ruin.

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights who announced the review in a statement Monday, referred to the massacre as “one of the deadliest episodes of mass racial violence in this nation’s history.”

The DOJ’s announcement comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June dismissed a reparations case filed by survivors of the massacre without going to trial.

The federal review is being conducted by the Civil Rights Division’s Cold Case Unit, which is investigating the crimes under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In July, survivors Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Ford Fletcher, 110, made a plea to the Biden administration to invoke the 2007 Act, which allows for cold cases of violent crimes against Black people committed before 1970 to be reopened and investigated.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for the Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors, celebrated the decision in a press conference Monday.

“I’m so excited to announce that this morning, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Kristen Clarke announced that the United States Federal Government Department of Justice will open a review and evaluation of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre,” Solomon-Simmons said.

“It is about time! It only took 103 years,” he added.

Solomon-Simmons said that this decision is credited to the multiple meetings with the Department of Justice, both in Washington D.C. and on Zoom, and the continuous fight of the community.

“This community would never stop fighting for reparations. This community would never forget what happened to our people, just for being black, just for being successful,” Solomon-Simmons said.

“So we are excited today. This has been a difficult journey, a lot of obstacles, a lot of odds, a lot of opposition, but today we have a victory,” he added.

Tiffany Crutcher, a descendant of a survivor of the massacre and founder and executive director of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, said the massacre has been “ignored for far too long.”

“Today, my family and community are deeply grateful that the U.S. Department of Justice is finally preparing to review the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. This tragedy has been ignored for far too long,” Crutcher said during the press conference.

“I leave you with this quote from my mentor, our mentor, Bryan Stevenson, this community will continue to stand on hope, and hope is what will get you to stand up when people tell you to sit down, and today, we continue to stand,” she said.