Oklahoma Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit by Tulsa Massacre Survivors

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, ruling that their grievances were legitimate but didn’t fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute and that their allegations were insufficiently supported in other ways. “We affirm the District Court’s July 12, 2023 Final Order of Dismissal with Prejudice,” the nine-member Oklahoma Supreme Court wrote in its June 12 opinion. The plaintiffs—all over 100 years old—sought reparations for the 1921 massacre in which a white mob destroyed the majority-black Greenwood district over the course of two days, May 31 and June 1. At the time, official records stated that 10 white people and 26 black people died during the attack, but researchers now estimate that as many as 300 people were killed and that most of them were black....