A U.S. Justice Department review of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre concluded that while federal prosecution may have been possible a century ago there is no longer an avenue to bring a criminal case more than 100 years after one of the nation's worst racial attacks. A report issued Friday outlined the scope and impact of the massacre, an attack by a white mob on a thriving Black district that left as many as 300 people dead and 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches destroyed, the Associated Press reports. “Now, the perpetrators are long dead, statutes of limitations for all civil rights charges expired decades ago, and there are no viable avenues for further investigation,” DOJ said.
Among the findings were federal reports from days after the massacre by an agent with the precursor agency to the FBI. Today’s investigators found no evidence that federal prosecutors evaluated those reports. The new report said that if DOJ didn't consider criminal charges, then its failure to do so is disappointing.” The report examined the role of various people and organizations in the massacre, including the Tulsa Police Department, the local sheriff, the Oklahoma National Guard and then-Tulsa Mayor T.D. Evans, determining that each played a role in the chaos and destruction, either by failing to act or by actively participating in the attack. Victor Luckerson, a Black author and historian who wrote a book about Tulsa’s Greenwood district, said there is value in the government establishing a definitive record of the attack. “Having government documents available lays the groundwork for the possibility of reparations,” Luckerson said. “Any of those discussions about reparations, one of the first questions is how we establish a factual record of what happened.” A researcher working for a state commission in 1999 estimated the damage from the attack at $1.8 million in 1921 dollars, about $32.2 million today.
Comments