The attorney representing the last living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre claims he and his clients learned of this week’s Department of Justice report on the massacre the same way most others did.
The DOJ on Friday released the first report in more than 100 years on the massacre, detailing at length the significant role that city of Tulsa and the National Guard played in the event. A white mob largely organized by Tulsa police and the Guard killed as many as 300 people, leveled more than 1,000 homes and destroyed prominent businesses in the area known as Black Wall Street.
Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, who represents massacre survivors Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, said the three of them “unfortunately” learned of the substance of the findings “through press outlets who were granted access to the report” before them.
“Despite the hundreds of hours our team spent speaking with the DOJ and providing information for this review, we did not receive any information or indication about what the report would include,” Solomon-Simmons said in a Saturday news release.
Solomon-Simmons said he and his team are meeting with the DOJ to discuss the report.
The report noted federal attorneys have no avenue for prosecution of the massacre because of statutes of limitations and because the perpetrators are all dead. Solomon-Simmons acknowledged that the report’s purpose is to provide an accurate historical record of the event.
KWGS has reached out to the DOJ for a response to Solomon-Simmons.
The department’s noted there are “credible reports” that some members of law enforcement “participated in murder, arson and looting.” And unlike its first report issued June 1921, the latest report asserted that the white mob’s “opportunistic violence became systematic” and stemmed from racial bias.
The report also lists names of perpetrators, which Solomon-Simmons said he wanted.
