What we know about the lawsuit filed by the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Attorneys for the two remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre said Thursday they will petition the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a rehearing in the case seeking reparations for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history. In an 8-1 decision on Wednesday, the state’s highest court upheld a decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year to dismiss the case. Although the court wrote that the plaintiff’s grievances about the destruction of the Greenwood district, also known as “Black Wall Street,” were legitimate, they did not fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute. Here are some things to know about the lawsuit that seeks reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. What happens next? Attorneys for Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, said they intend to file a petition for rehearing with the court, essentially asking the court to consider the case again because they believe it erred in its decision. “The destruction of forty-square blocks of property on the night of May 31, 1921, through murder and arson clearly meets the definition of a public nuisance under Oklahoma law,” the attorneys said in...