To: The United States House of Representatives
In Support of H.R. 98: John Hope Franklin Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot Claims Accountability Act of ...
In 1921, Greenwood, the African American district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was destroyed by rioters. "The Black Wall Street," as it was called, lost over 300 men and women to mob violence, and hundreds of property loss claims against state officials who stood by, and even deputized rioters, were ignored in the days and years that followed. H.R. 98 is bill to reopen the case for redress for the families who lost property and loved ones in the riot, and want to rebuild their community. It was introduced on January 3, 2013 by Representative Conyers. Please support H.R. 98!
Why is this important?
As detailed by a report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Race Riot of 1921, Greenwood after the riot was “a blackened landscape of vacant lots and empty streets, charred timbers and melted metal, ashes and broken dreams. Where the African American commercial district once stood was now a ghost town of crumbling brick store fronts and the burned-out bulks of automobiles. Gone was the Dreamland and the Dixie, gone was the Tulsa Star and the black public library, gone was the Liberty Cafe and Elliott & Hooker’s clothing store, H.L. Byars’ cleaners and Mabel Little’s beauty salon. Gone were literal lifetimes of sweat and hard work, and hard-won rungs on the ladder of the American Dream. Gone, too, were hundreds of homes, and more than a half-dozen African American churches, all torched by the white invaders. Nearly ten-thousand Tulsans, practically the entire black community, was now homeless." As justice was never delivered, H.R. 98 is a bill to reopen the case for redress. Redress to families affected by the Tulsa Race Riot is widely supported by civil rights scholars and academics who study the topic of reparations. To learn more, check out one of the many books that has been written on the riot and its aftermath, including Albert Brophy's Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Scott Ellsworth's Death in a Promised Land, and James S. Hirsch's Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy. There have been at least two documentary films made about the race riot: Before They Die!, and The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story. Check out the Oklahoma Commission report: http://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf. Last but not least, see the text of H.R. 98 here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr98ih/pdf/BILLS-113hr98ih.pdf.