‘Their Strategy Is for These People to Die’: Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors’ Lawyer Accuses City of Brutal Bid to Run Out the Clock


More than a century after one of the worst racial terror attacks in U.S. history decimated “Black Wall Street,” the survivors may be running out of time, and their lawyer believes that the city of Tulsa may be banking on that.

As their lawsuit enters their third year, two of the survivors — Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher — are 108 years old. The youngest, Hughes Van Ellis (also known as, “Uncle Red”), is 102 years old.

Opening up about their quest for reparations, their lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons told Law&Crime that the city of Tulsa has played a brutal waiting game in an effort to run out the clock.
“I say that because we know that back in 2018, when the last known living survivors at that time died, the city just kind of really opened up about their role in the massacre,” the attorney added. “The Chamber opened up about their role in the massacre and others. They were very forthright. ‘This is wrong. We want to make amends.’ But they didn’t realize that there were other survivors that were there.”

That spirit of openness changed, the lawyer said, once his clients decided to sue.
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