← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 5217 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2003-02-25
2003-02-25 21:35 | User Profile
From The Associated Press, available online at: [url=http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=991051&pic=none&TP=getarticle]http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article...e&TP=getarticle[/url]
Lawsuit seeks reparations for 1921 race riot
By Clayton Bellamy February 24, 2003
TULSA, Okla. - Black survivors and descendants of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot sued the state and the city Monday seeking reparations for lost loved ones, destroyed businesses and burned homes.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tulsa alleges authorities did not stop and sometimes participated in the riot that left dozens dead, many more missing and hundreds of homes and businesses destroyed.
The Tulsa Reparations Council has assembled a star-studded legal team, including Johnnie Cochran and civil rights attorney Dennis Sweet, for the lawsuit seeking unspecified damages. All are working pro bono.
"We have an obligation to fight hard and leave no stone unturned to find justice," Cochran said. "It's been too long coming, so we must act urgently."
The lawsuit names Gov. Brad Henry and Tulsa police chief Dave Been, the city of Tulsa and its police department as defendants. More than 200 survivors and victim's descendants are plaintiffs.
City attorney Martha Rupp-Carter, Phil Bacharach and Charlie Price, spokesmen for Henry and Attorney General Drew Edmondson, respectively, all said they had not received the lawsuit and could not comment.
Police spokesman Sgt. Wayne Allen said only, "I doubt any of the current (police force) members authorized" any of the atrocities allegedly committed by authorities.
The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which found similar allegations as in the lawsuit, recommended in February 2001 that survivors and victim's descendants be paid restitution for the May 31, 1921 riot.
Neither the city nor the state have provided any such money. Private organizations have given the more than 100 survivors about $300 apiece, but the plaintiffs said that was not enough.
"That won't pay for a new house or the property the city took from us," said Otis G. Clark, 100, who said white rioters killed his stepfather and his bulldog "Bob" and burned his family's home.
The riot, one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence, started after shots were exchanged between a white lynch mob and blacks trying to protect the intended target, a shoeshiner accused of assaulting a white woman. The shoeshiner was never prosecuted.
Greenwood, a thriving black community, was devastated and has never fully recovered, and investigators estimate that as many as 300 people, mostly blacks, died. About $2 million in property was damaged, the lawsuit says.
Few property owners were compensated because most insurance plans did not cover riot damage, and a host of lawsuits, filed by both blacks and whites after the riot, appear to have been unsuccessful.
"Tulsa gave us a check marked insufficient funds, but today we have some mighty debt collectors," said Tulsa lawyer James Goodwin, one of 16 plaintiffs' attorneys.
The lawsuit alleges that Tulsa police deputized a white mob, and National Guard troops used violence to quell what they perceived to be a "negro uprising."
Also, after the riot, the city of Tulsa enacted illegal zoning requirements preventing blacks from rebuilding their homes, the lawsuit claims. Survivors, like Clark, said the city took their property without due process.
Further, a state law limiting municipalities' liabilities is unconstitutional, the lawsuit claims.
"I would like to have some reparations if they're going to be giving some," said survivor Roanna McClure, 89, who waited out the riot in a neighbor's basement. "They set my grandma's house on fire."
The Legislature passed laws in 2001 aimed at revitalizing Greenwood, setting up a scholarship fund for college-bound descendants of riot victims and appropriating $1.5 million for a riot memorial.
The city is studying economic development opportunities for Greenwood and is providing in-kind services for the $20 million memorial, said Dwain Midget, assistant to the mayor.
2003-02-25 23:10 | User Profile
I support this lawsuit. It will create a great precedent that we can use to sue blacks for hundreds of riots, from MLK marches to the LA Riots.
2003-02-26 03:27 | User Profile
Originally posted by Drakmal@Feb 25 2003, 18:10 ** I support this lawsuit. It will create a great precedent that we can use to sue blacks for hundreds of riots, from MLK marches to the LA Riots. **
I do too, in principle. But we have a problem. Just what kind of payout can we get from blacks? Considering welfare, affirmative action, and jobs acquired due to fear of discrimination lawsuits whatever we did get would have been ours to begin with.
2003-02-26 17:20 | User Profile
Get real, people.
Chances are this case will end with a settlement, not a court verdict. So, no real precedent will have been set. And, unless the settlement is enough to bankrupt the city, you probably will never hear in the leftist/neocon media that there ever was a settlement.
And, even if the court rules for the shakedown artists and the criminal race, you know that these kind of things are one-way streets. Whites exist in America to be screwed, not to be compensated, not to be treated equally.
2003-02-27 04:28 | User Profile
**Chances are this case will end with a settlement, not a court verdict. So, no real precedent will have been set. And, unless the settlement is enough to bankrupt the city, you probably will never hear in the leftist/neocon media that there ever was a settlement. **
Quite right. Given what the hapless civilized denizens of LA and other cities have already endured, courtesy of domestic and imported wildlife, it is probably best to keep the books clean of such precedents. Even so, faith in the doctrine of stare decisis is misguided for its ââ¬Ëgeniusââ¬â¢ is that it will readily accommodate (incremental) tweaks commensurate with changes in society, regardless of motives of its helmsmen. So bullish is the evolution of reparations for inter-generational wrongs that I eagerly await action for restitution over what some of our ancestral simians did to others. :rolleyes:
2003-02-27 06:31 | User Profile
The Statute of Limitations has no relevance here?
2003-02-27 07:08 | User Profile
Originally posted by amundsen@Feb 25 2003, 21:27 ** But we have a problem. Just what kind of payout can we get from blacks? Considering welfare, affirmative action, and jobs acquired due to fear of discrimination lawsuits whatever we did get would have been ours to begin with. **
In other words, it's like a tax return. I can live with that. :D
2003-02-27 16:41 | User Profile
Silly Seq, we live in post-law America.
Actually, I would expect the lawsuit to be defeated in court. But, there will be a settlement anyway. It's not that the city fears losing in court, it's the the whole race of blacks are in on the crime. For starters, any blacks who hold power in the city will push for a settlement, not out of any desire to uphold the law or justice but because the plaintiffs are black. And, they won't just push for a little settlement. They'll have dreams of zillions of dollars, and kickbacks, floating around in their head, and only fiscal reality and whites will moderate that number into something that won't bankrupt the city.
But, the real reason there will be a settlement is to avoid the real weapon of all black leaders -- they really are the leaders of the black community. They can threaten damageing boycotts, more extortion, and (ironically) riots. People like Jesse Jackson and Jonny Cochran really do stand with the weight of the entire black population behind them.
If the city doesn't settle, every black citizen there will "know" how totally racist the city is and thus at every chance, more so than now, every black jury ect. will take the oppertunity to doubly punish the evil whites. The bar will be lowered for the spark of the next riot. And, there will be a call for everyone to boycott the city (even if it hurts the local blacks).
2003-02-27 20:33 | User Profile
we live in post-law America.
Yes. The rule of law gives way to jungle law every time.