Last chance for ‘justice in their lifetime’: survivors of Tulsa race massacre push for restitution

The two remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, thought to be the worst single act of white supremacist violence against African Americans in US history, attended a momentous hearing on Tuesday. The supreme court of Oklahoma considered an appeal in what is almost certainly the women’s final shot at reparative justice. Lessie Benningfield Randle, dressed all in black, and Viola Fletcher, huddled under a mauve woollen blanket, listened intently as lawyers engaged in technical legal arguments for almost two hours. It was no small feat, given that both women are 109. Mother Randle and Mother Fletcher, as they are known, were just children on 31 May 1921, when over a period of 24 hours, about 300 Black Tulsans were murdered by a rampaging white mob. Forty blocks of the Greenwood neighborhood – so thriving at the time that it was dubbed Black Wall Street – were bombed from the air and razed to the ground. More than 100 lawsuits have been filed over the years since then, seeking redress for the terrible events, which left 9,000 Black residents homeless and drove an entire community into destitution. But not one survivor has ever had their day in court until...