Washington DC, US
Reuters
The US Department of Justice has launched a review and evaluation of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.
The massacre started on 31st May, 1921, when white attackers killed as many as 300 people, most of them Black, in Tulsa’s prosperous Greenwood neighbourhood, which had gained the nickname “Black Wall Street”.
US President Joe Biden tours the Greenwood Cultural Center during a visit to mark the centennial anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US, on 1st June, 2021. PICTURE: Reuters/Carlos Barria/File photo
In announcing the review on Monday, Clarke said the department aims to have it finalised by the end of the year.
“When we have finished our federal review, we will issue a report analysing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights law,” said Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcement efforts.
The review will be conducted under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the Department of Justice to investigate death-resulting civil rights crimes that occurred on or before 31st December, 1979.
The massacre started after a Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman.
“We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state,” Clarke said. “Although a commission, historians, lawyers and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.”
Clarke said the department is examining available documents, witness accounts, scholarly and historical research and other information related to the massacre.
