Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Fletcher, 110,
condemned the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision last month to
dismiss their lawsuit seeking reparations.
"Our legal system continues to deny Black Americans an equal
opportunity to seek justice under the law," Randle and Fletcher
said in a joint statement read by their lawyers at a press
conference in Tulsa. They asked the U.S. Department of Justice
to open an investigation into the massacre.
"With our own eyes, and burned deeply into our memories, we
watched white Americans destroy, kill and loot. And despite
these obvious crimes against humanity, not one indictment was
issued, most insurance claims remain unpaid or were paid for
only pennies on the dollar, and Black Tulsans were forced to
leave their homes and live in fear," Randle and Fletcher said.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division did not respond to a request for
comment.
On May 31, 1921, white attackers killed as many as 300 people,
most of them Black, in Tulsa's prosperous Greenwood
neighborhood, which had gained the nickname "Black Wall Street."
Damario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for Randle and Fletcher,
said the two survivors had been "begging" the DOJ for years to
investigate as their legal battle with Oklahoma dragged on.
"It is time for the administration to show not just Mother
Randle, not just the Greenwood community, but Black America that
they will stand with us in our time of need," Solomon-Simmons
said.
(Reporting by Liya Cui; editing by Donna Bryson and Rod Nickel)
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