Survivors and descendants of country's worst race riot take their case to the Supreme Court

• Originally published on National Public Radio (NPR) March 24, 2005 Copyright 2005 National Public Radio

ED GORDON, host:

From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Ed Gordon.

On May 31, 1921, one of the country's worst race riots destroyed Greenwood, Oklahoma, a thriving black community on the outskirts of Tulsa. A white mob killed, by some estimates, as many as 300 African-Americans and burned the homes of thousands. Some Greenwood residents sought reparations from the state and local courts but were denied. Now more than 80 years later, survivors and their descendants have taken their case to the United States Supreme Court.

In a moment, we'll hear from the families' lead attorney, Charles Ogletree, a professor of law at Harvard and Tulsa's deputy city attorney, Larry Simmons. But first, NPR's Roy Hurst reports on what led to the Tulsa race riot.

ROY HURST reporting:

The trouble began when a young black man, Dick Rowland, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a white woman. Worried that he would be lynched, dozens of African-Americans from Greenwood, many of them World War I veterans, gathered at the jail to protect Rowland, but their presence attracted a much larger white mob.

In a 2000 report for NPR, Greenwood native Robert Fairchild, then 17, remembers what happened next.

Mr. ROBERT FAIRCHILD (Greenwood Native): So there was a white man about 65 years of age, about 5'5 walked up to this 6'5 Negro and said, `Nigger, what you doing with that gun?' He said, `I'm going to use it if I need to' and he said, `No, you're not. You're going to give it to me' and he tried to take it and that's what set the riot off.

HURST: The white mob overwhelmed those who had come to protect the prisoner, then surged through the streets of Greenwood setting fire to everything in its path. George Monroe, only five at the time, remembers hiding under the bed with his brothers and sisters.

Mr. GEORGE MONROE (Greenwood Resident): After they came in and set the curtains on fire, they were leaving and one stepped on my finger. And I was just about to holler and scream when my older sister that was next to me put her hand over my mouth to keep them from knowing that we were under the bed.

HURST: The morning after the riot, most of Greenwood lay smoldering. In the ensuing months and years, (audio loss) for compensation (audio loss) in their lives, but they found little sympathy.

Then in 2001, a commission created by the Oklahoma Legislature released a report criticizing officials for their role in agitating the riot. That report sparked a new lawsuit. Led by Harvard University Professor Charles Ogletree, survivors and their descendants sued the state, the city of Tulsa and the Tulsa Police Department. The case is now before the Supreme Court, which is expected to decide soon whether to hear it. For NPR News, I'm Roy Hurst.

GORDON: The question for the Supreme Court is this: Despite new evidence in the state legislature's report, did the riot survivors and their families wait too long to file their suit? Professor Charles Ogletree says he thinks this time his clients might finally win reparations.

Professor CHARLES OGLETREE (Harvard University): In 2001 for the first time ever, there was a national report by the state of Oklahoma saying, `We got it wrong. Blacks were not the cause. They were the victims and we owe them reparations.' And the reason that it's so important is because the story about Tulsa in 1921, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, all the way up until 2000 was different than the story that was finally revealed with evidence that had been suppressed, that had been concealed, and it finally came forward.

So if people look at this report, they will see for the first time what happened and why this case is in court and see that there's a compelling case like in Greenwood, like with the Japanese-Americans, like with the victims of the Holocaust, that this is a case that cries out for relief.

GORDON: And you do liken that to atrocities that we've seen before?

Prof. OGLETREE: Indeed. In many respects because most people have never heard of Greenwood. Most people don't even know that blacks were murdered because of a race riot. Most people don't realize that prominent places like the Stratford Hotel, the Dreamland Theater, Buck Colbert Franklin's law office. He was John Hope Franklin, the great historian. His father's law office was burnt down. And now we can't deny that it happened and this is a case where the victims are alive and they've come forward now after many, many years of suffering in silence.

GORDON: You talk about the fact that you actually have living survivors. Part of the argument against reparations is that you don't know who the monies should go to.

Prof. OGLETREE: That's exactly right and here we have the people who were actually victims in 1921. We have reports of what they lost. We have photographs for the first time of what was destroyed. And even the city that has opposed this case can't dispute the fact that every court that's heard this case agrees that they could not have brought the lawsuit in 1920s, '30s, '40s, '50s or '60s. They simply want to say it happened. It was a tragedy. It's a long time ago. But the fact that we still have now 120 survivors still alive is living proof of what happened. Ed, since this case was filed, 24 of these survivors have died. They're all over 80 and they're dying every day. That's why this case finally calls for some urgent justice. We hope it's in the Supreme Court, and if not, thank God at least Congress is paying attention and the Congressional Black Caucus is planning to have hearings so the whole world will find out what happened in Tulsa in 1921.

GORDON: We should also note that you are not seeking normal remedy for these reparations, are you?

Prof. OGLETREE: Right. These--it's amazing. These survivors have talked extensively about their vision of where they want this movement to go, and when they talk about issues, they want education and health care, not something for themselves but for their children, grandchildren and those yet to be born, because they see that what really needs to be done is to restore the great black Wall Street in Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and to move forward.

GORDON: Some people have used the term domestic terrorism when talking about this riot. Do you see it in the same vein?

Prof. OGLETREE: It is the worst case of domestic terrorism in this country, in the 20th century. There's no riot, no destruction that compares with Tulsa. It's unparalleled. Ed, 8,000 African-Americans overnight were homeless and not an effort made to respond at all.

Indeed, one of the judges refused to accept money when other states wanted to send money to help the blacks rebuild. They said, `No, it's our problem. We will address it. We have to pay the debt of what we did to our African-Americans in Tulsa.' They didn't do it in 1921. They didn't do it in 1923. They've never done it and now it's time that someone has the moral courage to stand up to say that these survivors need to be told that there will be justice while they're still alive, to restore Tulsa to the great na--city that it was in the 1920s.

GORDON: Professor Charles Ogletree, thank you so much for being with us and sharing where you are with this.

Prof. OGLETREE: My pleasure to be with you.

GORDON: Charles Ogletree is a professor of law at Harvard University and an attorney for the Tulsa race riot victims and their families.

But not everyone shares the viewpoint that reparations should now be paid. Larry Simmons is Tulsa's deputy city attorney.

Mr. LARRY SIMMONS (Deputy City Attorney, Tulsa): There's two different things going on. One is the lawsuit for damages, and that's the part that I'm dealing with. The state and the city have been attempting to address the broader social issues regarding our current response to the 1921 riot.

GORDON: In terms of damages, the courts have sided so far, a lower court and an appeals court, on the idea of the statute of limitations running out. Yet there are those who suggest because of the atrocity and because of the loss of life, that those statutes should be set aside.

Mr. SIMMONS: The law provides the statute of limitations so that two things occur. One is you've got a trial that's based upon actual evidence as opposed to hearsay or newspaper clippings or that kind of thing. And the other is just fairness over--after so many years, is it fair to ask people to decide a question where no one really remembers for sure and can say what actually happened. Both of those are obstacles that are difficult to overcome, although the plaintiffs are pursuing one method of overcoming that obstacle called equitable estoppel, and that's one of the issues that's presented to the Supreme Court.

GORDON: What of the idea of fairness for these plaintiffs as you suggested? We talked with Mr. Ogletree about the report that was commissioned by the Oklahoma State Legislature that suggested that there was at the time a pervasive sense that African-Americans were the cause, rather than the victims, of this violence, and therefore it was not until that ruling had been brought to light that the statute, the clock, if you will, should have started to tick.

Mr. SIMMONS: I think that is an incorrect assumption and it's pretty clear that under federal law the clock starts when you're injured, and in this case, this wasn't like a medical case where someone's under anesthesia and they don't realize what's happened to them. The plaintiffs claim that they could not have known of the city's involvement, but the fact is there were hundreds of lawsuits filed against the city. The Oklahoma Supreme Court heard a case and published an opinion outlining the allegations against the city in 1923.

GORDON: Is there in your mind, though, any remedy for, clearly, the prejudice at the time and even at that point of adjudication, if you will, there were pervasive thoughts of racism at the time. Is there any room to tweak because of that?

Mr. SIMMONS: Yes, the remedy for that situation is the one that the plaintiffs have seized upon in this case and that is of an equitable estoppel alleging that the circumstances in the community were so extraordinary that even though the plaintiffs knew or should have known they had a cause of action, it would have been futile to pursue it. The courts have just said while that may be true, it didn't stay that way for 80 years. And the law is that once the circumstances that prohibit you from getting in the court have dissolved, then it's up to you to get into the court in a timely fashion. And the courts have been open to African-American citizens in this city and in the country for many, many years, and the statute of limitations is just two years, so that's the basis for the lower court and the appellate court's rulings.

GORDON: If this, in fact, does reach the Supreme Court, I suspect that you feel good that the rendering, the decision rendered there, will be the same?

Mr. SIMMONS: I don't really know what the Supreme Court will do. They are presented, of course, a very narrow issue at this point, the standard of review to be employed when someone is reviewing a decision that the circumstances changed such that the courts became open. I think under either standard, though, this case is still going to be dismissed on the statute of limitations grounds. But the case for reparations is a separate matter. They can pursue that in the state legislature. That's where success has been found for victims of this type of atrocity.

GORDON: Well, Attorney Simmons, thank you so much for being with us today. We greatly appreciate your time.

Mr. SIMMONS: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

GORDON: Larry Simmons is Tulsa's deputy city attorney. For more information on the Tulsa race riots and the current reparations case, visit our Web site at npr.org.

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