Lessie Benningfield Randle was 5 years old in 1921 when she survived the Black Wall Street massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, at age 105, Randle is seeking reparations for the horrors she witnessed as a girl.
Randle is the main plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against the Tulsa County sheriff, the Oklahoma National Guard, and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. She and the other plaintiffs are seeking reparations for the physical, financial, and psychological damages the massacre had on black residents of the city.
“Randle constantly relives the terrors,” said Eric Miller, one of Randle’s attorneys. “And yet, the city of Tulsa has done nothing to compensate her for the damages it has inflicted on her life.”
In 1921, the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood was known as Black Wall Street because of the booming black-owned businesses that popped up in the area following the Civil War. In May of that year, Dick Rowland, a black man, was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. Upon word of his arrest, a group of armed black residents arrived at the courthouse to protect him.
The next day, white rioters burned much of Greenwood and killed as many as 300 black individuals, and more than 1,200 homes were burned. Rather than arresting the white rioters, many black individuals were jailed by the Oklahoma National Guard. According to a 2001 report from an Oklahoma commission tasked with studying the event, the charges against Rowland were dropped, and historians believe he did not assault the woman, but rather he tripped and bumped her as he fell.
“We don’t know exactly how many people were killed,” said Damario Solomon-Simmons, another attorney for Randle. “All we know is that people did this with impunity. No one to this day has been held accountable.”
The plaintiffs include one massacre survivor, 105-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle. I was fortunate enough to photograph her a year ago when she was only 104. That face!!! #TulsaMassacre #tulsa #tulsaracemassacre pic.twitter.com/W8ROgyUoxq
— Mike Simons (@mikesimonsphoto) September 2, 2020
The attorneys argued that state and local officials covered up the massacre and neglected the Greenwood neighborhood for generations, which set black families behind. The lawsuit requested that punitive damages be placed on the defendants, scholarships and tax relief should be instituted for the families of victims, and that a mandate would be placed on the city of Tulsa to prioritize black residents in awarding city contracts.
The Supreme Court declined to hear a case on behalf of the victims in 2005 because they argued that the plaintiffs had waited too long to sue under the statute upon which the lawsuit was written. The attorneys believe their new legal strategy could find the success that the previous lawsuit lacked.
