OK In-Depth; Tulsa Riots Reparations

I know we don't get it. I have no doubt about it. We don't get it in your lifetime, in your lifetime, in your lifetime. We got to get it because it's right to get it. We got to get it because the toss of community is going mobilized like the people of the Montgomery mobile line. That's Chicago politician and longtime civil rights activist Dorothy Tillman. She was speaking several weeks ago to a captive audience of hundreds of people at Sanctuary Evangelistic Church in Tulsa. They gathered to renew their calls for reparations for the survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa race riots, which occurred when a white mob burned down most of the wealthy black-owned Greenwood section of the city. According to a 2001 report from a state commission, rioters destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses over the course of several days and they killed at least 300 people. Attempts to secure reparations through the U.S. legal system ended last May when the Supreme Court dismissed without comment a class action lawsuit against Tulsa, its police department,

and the state of Oklahoma. But reparations campaigners are not about to give up their fight just yet. While they search for other routes to pursue their case, they say there's still reason for hope. Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree leads the plaintiff's legal team. Two years ago, when we were in the federal court here in Oklahoma, even the judge made clear the merits of your case, even though we denied it on the basis of statute limitations. He said plaintiffs assert extraordinary circumstances and a legal system that was openly hostile to them, courts that were practically closed to their claims, a city that blamed them for the riot and actively suppressed the facts, an era of planned domination of the courts and police force, and the era of Jim Crow. There is no question that there are exceptional circumstances here. The political and social climate after the riot simply was not one wherein the plaintiffs had a true opportunity to pursue their legal rights.

91-year-old Rowana McClure was only seven in 1921, but she has vivid memories of fleeing the rioting with her family and hiding in the basement of a doctor's home while much of her neighborhood went up in flames. What do you think should happen now? What do you think people like you, survivors, and, you know, your children? You shouldn't feel like they were something. We weren't given justice at all. I just really feel like we are entitled to something, whether we get it or not. McClure and other survivors were heartened by the visit of U.S. Representative Maxine Waters of California, who announced the support of the Congressional Black Caucus. We hope that we can get public policy makers to accept reparations so that it enters into the public policy debate in a real way. And how do you foresee advancing that? I mean, it's already gone to the Supreme Court and back. What is the next step at this stage?

I still think we have a long way to go in the Congress of the United States as a matter of fact, we did hold a hearing there. That's just the beginning step. It must see its way into legislation of some sort. It must see its way through the legislative process and onto some president's desk. I don't know if it'll be this president, but some president's desk. But most observers admit that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. So in the meantime, activists are also pursuing another strategy. They've just filed a petition with the Organization of American States accusing the U.S. of violating international law and asking for foreign pressure on U.S. courts to hear the case. I'm KGOU News Director Scott Gourian.