Justice Department Will Launch Civil Rights Review Into 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

The Justice Department announced Monday it plans to launch a review of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, an attack by a white mob on a thriving Black district that is considered one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.

The review was launched under a federal cold-case initiative that has led to prosecutions of some Civil Rights Era cases, although Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said they have “no expectation” there is anyone living who could be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry. Still, the announcement of a first-ever federal probe into the massacre was embraced by descendants of survivors who have long criticized city and state leaders for not doing more to compensate those affected by the attack.

Clarke said the agency plans to issue a public report detailing its findings by the end of the year.

“We acknowledge descendants of the survivors, and the victims continue to bear the trauma of this act of racial terrorism,” Clarke said during her remarks in Washington.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the last known survivors of the massacre, 110-year-old Viola Fletcher and 109-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, described Clarke’s announcement as a “joyous occasion.”

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The Oklahoma Supreme Court in June dismissed a lawsuit by survivors, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the city would make financial amends for the attack.

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After the state Supreme Court turned away the lawsuit, Solomon-Simmons asked the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

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