No reinstatement for Tulsa race riot suit

A federal appeals court denied requests Wednesday to reinstate a lawsuit filed by hundreds of people affected by a race riot in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the plaintiffs waited too long to sue the city, police and other officials. The Denver-based court ruled the statute of limitations bars the lawsuit from proceeding. The decision upholds an earlier ruling by an Oklahoma district court. "The Tulsa race riot represents a tragic chapter in out collective history," the appeals panel wrote. "While we have found no legal avenue exists through which plaintiffs can bring their claims, we take no great comfort in that conclusion." More than 400 plaintiffs - including about 150 survivors of the riot and 300 descendants of those killed or who lost property - filed the suit in February 2003. Their attorney had argued a report issued in 2001 disclosed new information about the riot, and it was not until after the end of the Jim Crow era in the 1960s that courts became receptive to civil rights lawsuits. [more ]