Attorneys for the last survivors of the 1921 Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, better known as Black Wall Street, expressed their disappointment after learning that the federal government’s first full accounting, of the terrorizing event was released to media outlets before them.

Activists were also disappointed that the government’s findings noted that there would be no prosecutions, no entity held liable, and no reparations to correct and atone for Black Wall Street’s destruction.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a report Jan. 10 on the Tulsa Race Massacre when a mob of armed, angry Whites terrorized and killed hundreds of Black residents, and destroyed and burned their homes and businesses.

The last two survivors of what federal investigators called a racially motivated, violent and systematic attack on one of Black America’s most economically prosperous and self-sufficient communities of their time, Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, endured the horrors of terrorism as young children.

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Mrs. Viola Ford Fletcher, 109, left, and Mrs. Lessie Benningfield Randle, 108, right, Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, are introduced during the House General Government Committee meeting at the Oklahoma Capitol, Oct. 5, 2023. Photo: Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman via AP In this 1921 image provided by the Library of Congress, smoke billows over Tulsa, Okla. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on June 12, 2024, dismissed a lawsuit of the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the government would make amends for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history. Photo: Alvin C. Krupnick Co./Library of Congress via AP

They also endured the humiliation and indignities associated with a local, state, and federal government that for over 100 years played a role in their families’ suffering, according to the DOJ (Department of Justice) Civil Rights Division’s Review and Evaluation of the Tulsa Race Massacre report.

“On the night of May 31, 1921, a violent attack by as many as 10,000 White Tulsans destroyed the thriving Black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma—a prosperous area often referred to as ‘Black Wall Street.’

The attack, which lasted into the afternoon of June 1, was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence,” the report’s Executive Summary stated.

“White men murdered hundreds of Black residents, burned businesses and homes to the ground, and left survivors without resources or recourse. In the aftermath, authorities failed to offer meaningful help, and efforts to seek justice through the courts floundered,” the summary continued.

“Seeking to understand and acknowledge the scope and impact of the massacre, the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, recently announced that its Cold Case Unit would review the events of 1921,” the summary noted.

“From the beginning of that effort, it has been clear that no avenue of prosecution now exists for these crimes—the youngest potential defendants would today be more than 115 years old, and the relevant statutes of limitations have long since expired.

Nevertheless, as the federal government’s first thorough reckoning with this devastating event, our resulting review officially acknowledges, illuminates, and preserves for history the horrible ordeals of the massacre’s victims,” the summary read in part.

According to Public Radio Tulsa, Atty. Damario Solomon-Simmons, who represents the last two living survivors of the race massacre, said the three of them “unfortunately” learned of the substance of the report’s findings through media outlets that received access to the 123-page document before the actual victims were informed of its conclusions.

“Despite the hundreds of hours our team spent speaking with the DOJ and providing information for this review, we did not receive any information or indication about what the report would include,” Solomon-Simmons said in a news release,” publicradiotulsa.org reported January 13.

Atty. Solomon-Simmons said he and his team would meet with the DOJ to discuss the report, although it said federal attorneys have no further actions they can take because of statutes of limitations and the passing away of the perpetrators.

Law, morality, and Divine Justice

“We are purely in a place of moral vs. legal arguments,” said Melba Pearson, a former prosecutor and civil rights attorney specializing in policy, in a message sent to The Final Call regarding the survivors’ legal prospects through the court system. “The Supreme Court as well as governors in conservative states have slowly eroded the legal options for relief for people of color.

Members of the Tulsa-based units of the Oklahoma National Guard took Black Tulsans into their protection. Photo: MGN Online

The argument would normally be ‘we do not have a living plaintiff to whom damages are owed’—and despite having living plaintiffs, the goalposts were moved again regarding (remedies),” she said of the Tulsa survivors’ previously dismissed lawsuit seeking damages.

Noting that justice delayed is justice denied, Atty. Pearson noted that after 100 years of roadblocks, sandbagging, and levels of malfeasance to hide an egregious crime against an entire community of Black people, the federal government will neither heal the wounds nor close the gaps of economic disparities caused by the intentional destruction of a once prosperous and economically self-sufficient Black community.

“The DOJ report in and of itself does not create a new legal basis for a new Black Wall Street—and with the attacks on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and affirmative action, I do not see federal intervention at all,” Atty. Pearson said of the new Congress and incoming president.

“This would have to be Black/allied private investors rebuilding on their own. I believe similar arguments that have been used for Indigenous people can be made for the descendants of enslaved people to receive reparations, but I don’t see them being successful on the federal level, especially with the new administration,” she said.

Dr. Ray Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore, told The Final Call that after reading what the DOJ said of the 1921 massacre.

He noted the extensive number of laws and reasons why the plaintiffs could neither sue today nor in the past. He said the report has proven, at least in the case of Tulsa, that American law has been a tool of racial oppression and tyranny.

“If you follow that logic, that underneath all law is race, then you look at the 1921 Tulsa massacre and the state was responsible, hundreds of White people were responsible for the killing of over 300 Black people, and the destruction of what W.E.B. DuBois called the most prosperous community, at that time, in Black America, it’s (not) hard to understand,” Dr. Winbush said.

He noted that the trajectory of such a community from over 100 years ago could have drastically altered the advancement and trajectory of Black people in the United States economically, socially, and politically for the better.

“In reading the Justice Department report, the reason why they couldn’t sue, all they did was cite law, but what Black people want and need is justice,” Dr. Winbush insisted. “All the legal machinations that existed in 1921, they were excuses for not giving Black people justice.

If you just wait a long time and deny justice, it just fades away and that’s what happened to Tulsa and there’s only two survivors from that who are alive,” he noted.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, wrote of the inevitable consequences America would face if it’s government and people continued down the path of injustice against the Black man and woman of America.

“It is very sad and horrible to look at the things that America had done, which are now coming on this country,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote on page 161 of his book, “The Fall of America,” published in 1973.

“For many years—centuries of years, America has lived a luxurious, wicked life, while hating her Black slaves and depriving them of justice—shooting them down on the streets, on the highways and in the woods and fields, for nothing,” he wrote later, quoting Psalms 10:8 from the Bible: “He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are set against the poor.”

Destruction from the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Photo: MGN Online

“Pharoah’s hatred and injustice to Israel, in Egypt, in the time of Moses, should serve America as a warning; but she has fallen headlong into the throes of the destruction of Allah (God),” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote on page 162.

“America runs to and fro seeking a way out, but she does not try to justify her Black slave for justice and equality among the nations of the earth. America has made us into nothing and she used us to mock us before the nations of the earth.”

Student Minister Jamal Ali Muhammad of the Nation of Islam Tulsa Study Group, under the leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, said the people of Tulsa, Oklahoma, have entered the valley of decision since the two-edged sword of justice and judgment entered America. He said the people will be called to account for failing to stand on truth and unity.

“As the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have taught us, the enemy is still benefiting from what took place in 1921, so the only avenue that I see for a solution is in Almighty God’s Justice because His justice will be administered perfectly for everyone,” said Student Min. Jamal Ali Muhammad.

“We must continue to work hard and strive to help the community to see the errors of their ways and work together with them to make progress on any given issue,” he noted. “We’ve got to stop concerning ourselves with what White people want done and concern ourselves with what God wants done. He is the One that is in power today.”

The Final Call