Claiming that the financial burden would financially damage the city–which is kinda the point–an Oklahoma judge threw out a lawsuit seeking reparations for the last three known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa mass murder of Black people by racist Oklahomans, the Washington Post reports.
Viola Fletcher, 108, Lessie Benningfield Randle, 107, and Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, 102, sought payment after surviving the attacks, which included bombings by aircraft, killing an estimated 300 people and displacing 10,000 from a prosperous Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street.
Lawyers for the state argued it “cannot be held liable for civil disobedience, riot, insurrection or rebellion or the failure to provide, providing police, law enforcement or fire protection,” which is rather disingenuous given reports that police officers may have assisted the attacks, with on account saying the white attackers were deputized by police and told to “get a gun and get a n*****.”