Part of survivors’ suit in 1921 massacre allowed

Three survivors of the 1921 massacre that saw a white mob kill hundreds of Black residents and destroy a thriving Black business district in Tulsa, Okla., can proceed with part of a lawsuit seeking reparations, a judge in Oklahoma has ruled.

“History was made today,” Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said outside the courtroom Monday, after the ruling by Judge Caroline Wall of Tulsa County District Court.

In an interview Tuesday, Solomon-Simmons said Wall would provide a written order that would provide details about the ruling, which granted a motion by the defendants to dismiss part of the case.

“The only thing we know is that she allowed a part of our case to move forward to discovery and trial,” he said, adding that “we do not know the specifics.”

The lawsuit names seven defendants, including the city, the Tulsa County sheriff and the Oklahoma National Guard. The city and others had asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which, under the state’s public nuisance law, said the devastation caused by the mob continued to affect the Greenwood community, which was home to the business district, today.

Solomon-Simmons said his team had to prove that the “nuisance” was created and that the harm continued.

The three plaintiffs who survived the massacre are all over 100 years old: Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis Sr. and Lessie Benningfield Randle, who says she still has flashbacks of corpses being stacked on the street as her neighborhood burned, according to the complaint.