The legal team for the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre is working to reverse the decision of their dismissed reparations case.
During a news conference on Monday outside of the Oklahoma Judicial Center in Oklahoma City, head attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons said, “if we are truly a nation of laws, this is the case that will prove it,” as he discussed the appeal filed on Aug. 4 with the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reinstate the group’s lawsuit.
Solomon-Simmons, also the founder of Justice for Greenwood, has been advocating for Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield, Viola Fletcher, and Hughes Van Ellis Sr. — the last living survivors that are still dealing with the effects of the riot. In 1921, an angry white mob destroyed the robust Black community in Tulsa, which was also known as “Black Wall Street.”
“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when he left our home,” the then 107-year-od Fletcher told Congress in 2021. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre everyday.”
The survivors, all in their 100s, filed a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma Military Department, Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, among other defendants, in 2020. The suit called for “a remedy [to] the ongoing nuisance” caused by the riot, according to court documents.
However, Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline dismissed the suit last month, siding with the defendants. Solomon-Simmons argued that the case “fit squarely within the common law property-based limitations that have shaped Oklahoma’s public nuisance statute for more than a century,” according to KJRH.
“There’s only one decision that can be made,” Solomon-Simmons added.”That decision is to swiftly, quickly reverse Judge Caroline Wall’s unjust and unlawful decision to dismiss.”
