Descendants Of Tulsa Bloodbath Victims Are Skeptical Of Justice Division Assessment

The Division of Justice introduced on Monday a federal evaluate into the two-day racist bloodbath in Tulsa, Oklahoma, greater than 100 years in the past, when white supremacists killed Black civilians whereas destroying properties and thriving companies within the predominantly Black group.

The 1921 bloodbath led to the deaths of a minimum of 300 folks after a 19-year-old Black teenager, Dick Rowland, was accused of raping a white lady, Sarah Web page. The 35-square-block space the place the bloodbath occurred was referred to as Black Wall Road, one of the vital prosperous neighborhoods for Black residents in America.

In making the announcement, U.S. Assistant Lawyer Normal Kristen Clarke famous the enhancement of the Justice Division’s civil rights chilly case unit following enactment of the Emmett Until Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

The Justice Division won’t pursue legal costs, since everybody concerned has since died, however it’ll conduct an analysis of the bloodbath to maintain on document.

“We hope that official reports, which reflect the Justice Department’s exhaustive efforts to seek justice, at bare minimum, prevent these victims and the tragic ordeals they endured from being lost to history,” Clarke mentioned in a assertion.

“We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state. Although a commission, historians, lawyers and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.”

Descendants of the Black Tulsans who lived by way of the riot welcomed the announcement, however many informed HuffPost they are going to reserve some skepticism till they see true accountability and amends.

“It can create a path for reparations,” mentioned Egunwale Amusan, whose grandfather Raymond Beard Sr. survived the bloodbath. “[But it] is unlikely there will be any accountability due to the absence of perpetrators and the absence of federal hate crimes at the time. We know there will be some legal barriers we will have to face as it relates to this.”

Nonetheless, Ausman and different descendants view the evaluate of the bloodbath as an opportunity for Tulsa to turn into the mannequin for related reviews in America. Florida, Georgia, Arkansas and a minimum of 27 different state legislatures are making efforts to erase literature and teachings concerning the plight of Black People within the nation’s historical past.

State Rep. Regina Goodwin informed HuffPost that the Justice Division’s analysis of Tulsa’s bloodbath is coming at a time when its residents already know what occurred. Goodwin’s great-grandfather and grandfather survived the bloodbath.

“When it is all said and done, there is not going to be any investigation, there is not going to be any prosecution and there is not going to be any compensation. I think the public needs to understand that, and they [DOJ] need to be very clear,” the Oklahoma Democrat mentioned.

In 1997, former state Rep. Don Ross launched laws that created the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Fee, an effort to look at the information and the historic results of the bloodbath that Ross and lots of others believed had been neglected of historical past.

A report was launched by the fee in 2001, and Ross wrote intimately about how he discovered concerning the bloodbath when he was a youngster. It grew to become one of many first steps to portraying America’s historical past with racism and among the nation’s most egregious acts which have continued to plague communities over a century later.

Ross’s report cites metropolis officers and officers who had been concerned within the burning of Greenwood. The Nationwide Guard apologized in 2021 for its position within the bloodbath.

“I first learn about the riot when I was 15 from Booker T. Washington High School teacher and survivor W.D. Williams. In his slow, laboring voice Mr. W.D. as he was fondly known, said on the evening of May 31, 1921, his school graduation and prom were canceled,” Ross wrote. The riot was starting.

Rowland, who made cash shining sneakers, was surrounded by a white mob calling for his lynching as he was arrested and brought to the courthouse. Armed Black residents started to collect within the space to guard him.

“There was a scuffle between a black and a white man, a shot rang out. The crowd scattered. It was about 10:00 a.m. A race riot had broken out. He said blacks defended their community for awhile, ‘but then the airplanes came dropping bombs.’ All of the black community was burned to the ground and 300 people died,” Ross wrote.

Tiffany Crutcher, an lawyer whose great-grandmother survived the bloodbath, informed HuffPost her great-grandmother fled from “racial terror, violence and harm” that day however then mentioned what occurred afterward was {that a} terrorized group discovered its technique to piece itself again collectively.

Crutcher mentioned victims by no means bought closure or reconciliation following the bloodbath after the state Supreme Court docket rejected a reparation lawsuit final June that had been introduced by the Black Wall Road bloodbath survivors.

“What we witnessed, really, after the smoke cleared was the resilience of a community that said we are not going to take injustice lightly,” Crutcher mentioned. “Resilience rose up, and now here we are, another generation carrying the baton, taking on the charge and the challenge of those survivors that were just handed a gold medallion.”

Crutcher informed HuffPost that America nonetheless must treatment “the harm that has been done,” and, for the nation to reside as much as that normal, she thinks the Justice Division evaluate is a step in the proper route.

“Tulsa is the microcosm of what is happening across the country, and if we can get it right in Tulsa, we can get it right anywhere and everywhere. I do feel that Tulsa is the model of reparations in this country,” Crutcher mentioned.

“I know there are a lot of efforts, but this is a unique case here in Tulsa when you think about generational wealth that was created. We did not have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps because we had boots,” Crutcher added, saying it was “stripped away” from them due to racism, hate and bigotry.

U.S. Rep. Al Inexperienced (D-Texas) informed HuffPost that what was occurring within the Greenwood district was about attacking Black wealth in a steadily rising group. Regardless of residing amid vital racism, Black Tulsa residents constructed a system during which they had been constructing upon wealth.

Inexperienced mentioned he’s a proponent of reparations and has pushed for America to totally reckon with slavery, which he describes as America’s “original sin.”

“This was something that happened not only in Greenwood but Rosewood, Florida, Louisiana. It happened in many cases in America. But this [Tulsa] case is the one that will bring to light the truths that have been hidden for many years,” Inexperienced mentioned.