OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit of the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the government would make amends for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.
The nine-member court upheld the decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year, ruling that the plaintiff’s grievances about the destruction of the Greenwood district, although legitimate, did not fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute.
“Plaintiffs do not point to any physical injury to property in Greenwood rendering it uninhabitable that could be resolved by way of injunction or other civil remedy,” the court wrote in its decision. “Today we hold that relief is not possible under any set of facts that could be established consistent with plaintiff’s allegations.”
It’s probably not relevant, but just in case you are wondering what the Oklahoma Supreme Court looks like…
Not that it changes your point about representation in this case, but I’m pretty sure that photo is at least 20 years old. This is the current, equally diverse Oklahoma Supreme Court:
Hey now, there’s a guy in a wheelchair in this one. That’s progress if I’ve ever seen it.
Thank you.
Could somebody better legally versed explain what a positive ruling would look like? Cause the court says their claims are legitimate.
Edit: ARE legitimate
I don’t know what a positive ruling would look like, but their claims are legitimate. The Tulsa Race Massacre not only killed over 300 people and destroyed a huge amount of property, it also destroyed the most prosperous black community in the nation. It was a neighborhood known as ‘Black Wall Street.’ And Tulsa has done fuck all about it even though they’ve had a century to make amends.
Tulsa native here. I never learned about it in school, even in the early '00s. I was a grown ass adult before I really learned about it and everything that happened. Notably, it was always called the “Tulsa Race Riots” to downplay the atrocities. The street in Greenwood was renamed to Reconciliation Way.
In my memory, that district never had anything going for it until recently, nobody cared. It’s been awesome to see it start to flourish. (I am not a lawyer) I really hope something can be done for the plaintiffs here, if it doesn’t fit the public nuisance law, surely there is something for the people directly affected by the events?
I learned about it from HBO’s Watchmen. And I love learning about history, if that says anything about how much the topic has been deliberately kept from us over the years.
Funny sort of riot where they drop fucking bombs from an airplane.
I only learned about it a few years back myself from Stuff You Should Know podcast.
Comments like this remind me of how I felt, as a Brit, to learn about Irish history, way after I left school.
Yeah of course they recognize it now but it took a fictional show on HBO for them to do so. Also a Tulsan, but not native.
As an Oklahoman who lives in the Tulsa area. I can tell besides doing jack shit about it they ignored it and it only got brought into the light after the show WatchMen on HBO brought it to the worlds attention.
Then suddenly they acted like they gave a shit. My wife and ex wife both born and raised in the areas neither knew about it either. They didn’t teach this is school.
Hell wasn’t until 2020 that they even pretended to look for the mass graves.
The court seems to feel that the events were bad but there are issues proving the plaintiff was directly harmed and the legal theory of nuisance here seem like a stretch.
But if they won, best case scenario they’d make out with cash damages and the vindication of having a judge saying the government was wrong.
Took me a few episodes to realize this wasn’t actually a fictional event. It was just too absurdly racist to actually happen, it just had to be for the story. It was not a fun day when I figured it out and read up on it. In my middle school, the civil rights movement was a whole year of material, how did they just forget to mention this at all?
