Oklahoma court dismisses bid for Tulsa Race Massacre reparations

25 minutes ago By Sam Cabral, BBC News, Washington Getty Images Survivors of one of the biggest race massacres in US history have lost their historic legal bid for reparations over the attack. The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the suit, filed in 2020 by a trio of survivors, on Wednesday. An estimated 300 black Americans were killed when a white mob razed the Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. Only two known survivors – Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109 – remain. The third, Hughes Van Ellis, died last year at 102. The plaintiffs had brought their case under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, arguing that the violence and destruction wrought on the “Black Wall Street” area more than a century ago continues to resonate today. The Tulsa County sheriff, county commissioners and the Oklahoma Military Department were named as defendants in the suit. In its Wednesday ruling, the state’s top court sided with Tulsa officials in arguing that the plaintiffs’ grievances did not entitle them to compensation. “With respect to their public nuisance claim, though Plaintiffs’ grievances are legitimate, they do not fall within the scope of our State’s public nuisance statute,” the court wrote. In doing...