TULSA COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR) – In a Tulsa County courtroom a judge dismissed a lawsuit from three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Friday according to court records.
The three children when the massacre occurred were the plaintiffs; Lessie Benningfield Randle, Viola Fletcher, and Hughes Van Ellis Sr.
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They filed the suit under ‘public nuisance’ hoping to get some repayment.
The court records show that the three were asking for:
- Immunity from all City of Tulsa and County of Tulsa taxes, fees, and assessments for the next 99 years for descendants of Massacre victims.
- Creation of a scholarship program for the descendants of the Greenwood District during the massacre.
- Payments of all outstanding claims that Greenwood residents had been denied by Defendants or insurance companies.
- Property development, including the purchase of business and residential property and repairs and upgrading existing property in the Greenwood neighborhood.
- Development of mental health and educational programs by individuals who live in Greenwood.
- Creation of a land trust into which all vacant or undeveloped land in the historical Greenwood neighborhood community currently owned by Defendants will be placed.
- Construction of a Level 1 Trauma Center hospital, including an urgent care center, in Greenwood, in which Greenwood and North Tulsa residents are given top priority for employment at all levels, that is named after and dedicated to the Massacre murder victim and nationally acclaimed surgeon, Dr. A.C. Jackson.
- And others..
The city requested the lawsuit be dismissed with prejudice, arguing that being connected to a historical event doesn’t give a person unlimited rights to seek compensation.
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On Friday the judge had the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice, which means it can’t be filed again.
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