[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 65 (Monday, April 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      INTRODUCTION OF THE TULSA-GREENWOOD RIOT ACCOUNTABILITY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 23, 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the Tulsa-
Greenwood Riot Accountability Act of 2007, along with Representative 
Nadler. This legislation will extend the statute of limitations to 
allow the survivors of the Tulsa-Greenwood Riot of 1921 to seek a 
determination on the merits of their civil rights and other claims 
against the perpetrators of the riot in a court of law.
  The Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, OK, was one of the Nation's most 
prosperous African-American communities entering the decade of the 
1920s. Serving over 8,000 residents, the community boasted two 
newspapers, over a dozen churches, and hundreds of African-American 
owned businesses, with the commercial district known nationally as the 
``Negro Wall Street.'' In May 1921, all that came to an end as 42 
square blocks of the community were burned to the ground and up to 300 
of its residents were killed by a racist mob. In the wake of the 
violence, the State and local governments quashed claims for redress 
and effectively erased the incident from official memory.
  The 1921 Tulsa race riot was one of the most destructive and costly 
attacks upon an American community in our Nation's history. However, no 
convictions were obtained for the incidents of murder, arson or larceny 
connected with the riot, and none of the more than 100 
contemporaneously filed lawsuits by residents and property owners were 
successful in recovering damages from insurance companies to assist in 
the reconstruction of the community.
  The case of the Tulsa-Greenwood riot victims is worthy of 
congressional attention because substantial evidence suggests that 
governmental officials deputized and armed the mob and that the 
National Guard joined in the destruction. The report commissioned by 
the Oklahoma State Legislature in 1997, and published in 2001, 
uncovered new information and detailed, for the first time, the extent 
of the involvement by the State and city government in prosecuting and 
erasing evidence of the riot. This new evidence was crucial for the 
formulation of a substantial case, but its timeliness raised issues at 
law, and resulted in a dismissal on statute of limitation grounds. In 
dismissing the survivors' claims, however, the court found that 
extraordinary circumstances might support extending the statute of 
limitations, but that Congress did not establish rules applicable to 
the case at bar. With this legislation, we have the opportunity to 
provide closure for a group of claimants--all over 90 years old--and 
the ability to close the book on a tragic chapter in history.
  Racism, and its violent manifestations, are part of this Nation's 
past that we cannot avoid. With the prosecution of historical civil 
rights claims, both civil and criminal, we encourage a process of truth 
and reconciliation which can heal historic wounds. In this case, the 
court took ``no great comfort'' in finding that there was no legal 
avenue through which the plaintiffs could bring their claims. The 
Tulsa-Greenwood Riot Accountability Act would simply give Tulsans and 
all Oklahomans, white and black, victims and non-victims, their day in 
court. Without that opportunity, we will all continue to be victims of 
our past.

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