The U.S. Department of Justice released a new report Friday on the Tulsa Race Massacre more than 100 years after publishing its first account.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division issued a review and evaluation of the deadly events of May 31 through June 1, 1921. A white mob killed as many as 300 people, leveled more than 1,000 homes and destroyed prominent businesses in the area known as Black Wall Street following an unsubstantiated report that a Black teenager assaulted a white woman.
Unlike the department’s first report issued in June 1921, the latest report asserted that the white mob’s “opportunistic violence became systematic” and stemmed from racial bias.
The report said Tulsa police deputized hundreds of white residents for the massacre and detained Black residents in makeshift camps.
There are also “credible reports” that some members of law enforcement “participated in murder, arson and looting,” according to a DOJ news release.
The report noted federal authorities are limited legally to pursue prosecution of the massacre, but said “the historical reckoning is far from over.”
“Had today’s more robust civil rights laws been in effect in 1921, federal prosecutors could have pursued hate crime charges against the massacre’s perpetrators, including both public officials and private citizens,” the release stated.
“The few avenues for federal prosecution that were available in 1921 were not pursued.”
The report also said the perpetrators of the massacre are all dead and thus cannot be prosecuted.
The report does, however, identify by name some of the alleged lead perpetrators of the massacre. These include Claud “Yellow Hammer” Cranfield, a suspect in a previous lynching of a Black man, and Tulsa police Capt. George Blaine, who a hardware store owner accused of breaking in and dealing out arms.
This aligns with Justice for Greenwood attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons’ push to name the alleged perpetrators.
“Work continues to ensure that future generations understand the scale and significance of this atrocity,” the department’s news release read.
Read the full report here.
