Revelation without reparation: evaluating the Oklahoma commission to study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
2023; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13642987.2023.2251893
ISSN1744-053X
Autores Tópico(s)Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
ResumoABSTRACTFor decades, a White narrative of self-defence against a Black uprising suppressed the truth of the 1921 Tulsa (Oklahoma) race massacre and blocked reparations to survivors. In 2001, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (often called the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, or TRRC), a truth commission established by the state of Oklahoma, demonstrated that Whites had conducted a pogrom against the Black community of Tulsa for which the government shared culpability. The TRRC recommended to the state legislature a reparations programme that included restitution and compensation to survivors and their descendants. However, because of flaws in the conception and execution of its mandate, the TRRC failed to convince the Oklahoma legislature to implement and fund its recommendations. The experience of the TRRC illustrates the gap between the measures that a truth commission recommends and those ultimately implemented by policymakers and offers lessons to future truth commissions charged with proposing reparations in response to organised violence.KEYWORDS: Black resistancepublic memoryracial violencereparationstruth commissionWhite supremacy AcknowledgmentsI thank for their guidance, comments, and inspiration John Vernon, Adjunct faculty, Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University, and Dr Carolyn Smith-Morris, Professor, Peter O'Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA. I also received helpful comments from several anonymous reviewers. Of course, all conclusions and any deficiencies are my responsibility.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Tulsans now refer to the attack as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and therefore this article refers to the ‘massacre’. Many accounts, including the reports of the TRRC, refer to the 1921 Tulsa race ‘riot’. This article uses the term ‘riot’ when that term makes commentary on those accounts more readable.2 Daniel Posthumus and Kelebogile Zvobgo, ‘Democratizing Truth: An Analysis of Truth Commissions in the United States’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 15, no. 3 (2021): 1-23, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijab029.3 In California, the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans has issued a final report and recommendations to the state legislature. “The California Reparations Report,” State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General, June 29, 2023, https://oag.ca.gov/ab3121/report.4 This summary is based on Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Tulsa Race Riot: A Report (Oklahoma City: Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 2001), https://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf.5 ‘Tulsa in Remorse to Rebuild Homes; Dead Now Put at 30’, New York Times, 3 June 1921, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com.6 Chris M. Messer, Thomas E. Shriver, and Krystal K. Beamon, ‘Official Frames and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921: The Struggle for Reparations’, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 4, no. 3 (2018): 390–2, https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649217742414.7 ‘Grand Jury Blames Negroes for Inciting Race Rioting; Whites Clearly Exonerated’, Tulsa World, 26 June 1921, NewsBank.8 ‘Propaganda of Negroes is Blamed’, Tulsa Tribune, 18 June 1921, Newspapers.com; James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance: the Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 126.9 ‘Riot Statement Made by Mayor’, Tulsa World, 15 June 1921, NewsBank.10 ‘Negroes Shuffle to Safe Retreat Hands Held High’, Tulsa Tribune, 1 June 1921, Newspapers.com.11 Alfred L. Brophy, Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 17-20.12 Elizabeth R. Catte, ‘No Deed but Memory: The Public History of American Race Riots’ (PhD diss, Middle Tennessee State University, 2016), 70-1, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1797618563/abstract/255806901FA4602PQ/1; Julia Forrester-Sellers, ‘The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the Politics of Memory’ (master's thesis, University of Tulsa, 2000), 35-40, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database. UMI No. 1415276.13 Brophy (2002), supra n 11, 96; Kelly Kurt, ‘Commission Faces More Work to Define Race Riot’, Associated Press, 28 January 1999, Dow Jones Factiva.14 New York Times (1921), supra n 5.15 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 13-4.16 ‘City is Not Liable, Says Legal Board’, Tulsa Tribune, 7 June 1921, Newspapers.com.17 ‘When Riot Stalked in Tulsa’, Tulsa World, 2 June 1921, NewsBank.18 Alfred L. Brophy, ‘The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, Apology, and Reparation: Understanding the Functions and Limitations of a Historical Truth Commission’, in Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation, ed. Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 239.19 Hirsch, supra n 8, 301.20 DeNeen L. Brown, ‘Tulsa Digs for Suspected Mass Graves from Race Massacre’, Washington Post, 14 July 2020, Dow Jones Factiva.21 Scott Ellsworth, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice (New York: Dutton, 2021), 47; Hirsch, supra n 8, 211.22 Ellsworth (2021), supra n 21, 45-7; Brent Staples, ‘Unearthing a Riot’, New York Times Magazine, 19 December 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/19/magazine/unearthing-a-riot.html.23 Tim Madigan, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 1st ed. (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2001), 252.24 Ellsworth (2021), supra n 21, 70.25 Hirsch, supra n 8, 168; Madigan, supra n 23, 217-8.26 ‘Don Ross’, Contemporary Black Biography 27 (Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 2001), 172.27 Ed Wheeler, ‘It Happened in Tulsa’, Tulsa Impact, June-July 1971, 1041-1060, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.28 Pete Earley, ‘The Untold Story of One of America's Worst Race Riots’, Washington Post, 12 September 1982, Dow Jones Factiva; Ellsworth (2021), supra n 21, 96.29 Ellsworth (2021), supra n 21, 107-8, 221-7; Michael Overall, ‘Mending Fences: Panel to Eye ‘21 Race Riot Reparations’, Tulsa World, 17 August 1997, NewsBank; Sam Howe Verhovek, ‘75 Years Later, Tulsa Confronts Its Race Riot’, New York Times, 31 May 1996, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com.30 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-Conflict States: Reparations Programmes’ (New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2008), 6, https://www.ohchr.org/en/publications/policy-and-methodological-publications/rule-law-tools-post-conflict-states-reparations,31 United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 60/147, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparations for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (New York: United Nations, 2005) 2, https://undocs.org/A/RES/60/147.32 Ibid., 6.33 Ibid., 7-8.34 David Backer, ‘Cross National Comparative Analysis’, Chap. 2 in Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice: Challenges for Empirical Research, ed. Hugo van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter, and Audrey R. Chapman, (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 2009), 41.35 UN General Assembly 2005, supra n 31, 8.36 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 13.37 Chuck Ervin, ‘´21 Tulsa Race Riot Study Proposal Advances’, Tulsa World, 8 April 1997, NewsBank; Tulsa Library, n.d., ‘After the Massacre’, accessed 14 October 2021, https://www.tulsalibrary.org/after-massacre.38 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Meeting, 18 June 1998, 76, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.39 Staples, supra n 22.40 Hirsch, supra n 8, 239-40; DeAunderia Bowens, ‘Unsettled Accounts: Political Responses to Past Racial Violence in 20th Century America’ (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2011), 32, 61-2, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, UMI Number 3458911.41 ‘Keating Signs Bill for Study of Riot’, Tulsa World, 23 April 1997, NewsBank.42 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission Act, 2001, Oklahoma S. Bill 788, accessed 28 September 2021, www.oklegislature.gov.43 Rob Martindale, ‘Poll: Oklahomans Opposed to Paying Riot Reparations’, Tulsa World, 10 January 2000, NewsBank.44 Forrester-Sellers, supra n 12, 34.45 Caleb Gayle, ‘100 Years After the Tulsa Massacre, What Does Justice Look Like?’ New York Times Magazine, 25 May 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/magazine/tulsa-race-massacre-1921-greenwood.html; Jim Yardley, ‘Panel Recommends Reparations in Long Ignored Tulsa Race Riot’, New York Times, 5 February 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/05/us/panel-recommends-reparations-in-long-ignored-tulsa-race-riot.html.46 ‘The Unethical Eye - CBS Airs Tulsa Riot Myths as Fact’, editorial, Daily Oklahoman, 19 July 2001, NewsBank.47 Forrester-Sellers, supra n 12, 38; Hirsch, supra n 8, 325.48 TRRC (1998), supra n 38, 22.49 Ibid., 25. The author added punctuation and capitalization to improve readability.50 Kevin Hearty, ‘“Victims of” Human Rights Abuses in Transitional Justice: Hierarchies, Perpetrators and the Struggle for Peace’, International Journal of Human Rights 22, no. 7 (2018): 896, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2018.1485656.51 Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), 163.52 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 6-8.53 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 3 and 7.54 Staples, supra n 22.55 Robert L. Brooks and Alan H. Witten, ‘The Investigation of Potential Mass Grave Locations’, in Tulsa Race Riot: A Report (Oklahoma City: Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 2001), 123-32, https://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf.56 Randy Krehbiel, ‘Panel Recommends Race Riot Reparations’, Tulsa World, 23 November 1999, NewsBank.57 Investigative Sub-Committee, ‘Preliminary Report of the Oklahoma Legislative Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921’, 4 February 2000, 957-982, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.58 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Meeting, 4 February 2000a, 84-89, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.59 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, ‘Preliminary Report’, February 7, 2000b, https://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf.60 Brian Ford, ‘Riot Panel May See Delay’, Tulsa World, 1 March 2000, and ‘House OKs riot panel’, Tulsa World, 30 March 2000, NewsBank.61 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 19.62 Ibid., 11-14, 16-17, 19.63 Clyde Snow, ‘Confirmed Deaths: A Preliminary Report,’ in Tulsa Race Riot: A Report (Oklahoma City: Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 2001), 109-22, https://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf.64 Randy Krehbiel, ‘Riot-Reparation Report Wraps Up’, Tulsa World, 1 March 2001a, NewsBank.65 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, ii; Krehbiel (2001a), supra n 64.66 Lois Romano, ‘No Vow to Make Amends for Tulsa; Legislators’ Sidestepping Disappoints Survivors of 1921 Race Riot’, Washington Post, 1 March 2001, ProQuest One Academic; Randy Krehbiel, ‘Keating: Riot Pay from State Not Likely’, Tulsa World, 10 August 2001b, NewsBank.67 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act, 74 Okla. Stat. §§ 8000.1, 8201.1, 8201.2, 8203, 8204, and 8205 (2001); Greenwood Area Redevelopment Authority Act, 74 Okla. Stat. §§8221-8226 (2001); accessed 28 September 2021, www.oklegislature.gov.68 Adrian Brune, ‘Tulsa's Shame: Race Riot Victims Still Wait for Promised Reparations’, The Nation, 18 March 2002, Gale Academic OneFile.69 Hirsch, supra n 8, 326.70 DeNeen L. Brown, ‘Tulsa Digs for Suspected Mass Graves from Race Massacre’, Washington Post, 14 July 2020, Dow Jones Factiva.71 Ellsworth (2021), supra n 21, 194-5.72 Tawnell D. Hobbs, ‘New Oklahoma Law Sparks Debate Over Teaching About Tulsa Massacre’, Wall Street Journal, 29 May 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-law-threatens-lessons-about-tulsa-race-massacre-11622293201.73 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission. n.d. ‘The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission’, accessed 16 November 2021, https://www.greenwoodrising.org/about.74 White House, ‘Remarks by President Biden Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre’, 1 June 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/06/02/remarks-by-president-biden-commemorating-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-tulsa-race-massacre/.75 Lisa J. Laplante and Kimberly Susan Theidon, ‘Truth with Consequences: Justice and Reparations in Post-Truth Commission Peru’, Human Rights Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2007): 231, 243-4, https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2007.0009.76 Ibid., 245.77 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008), supra n 30, 12.78 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982).79 US Congress, House, Civil Liberties Act of 1988, HR 442, 100th Cong. (10 August 1988), https://govtrack.us/congress/bills/100/hr442/text (accessed 10 February 2022).80 Charles P. Henry, ‘The Politics of Racial Reparations,’ in Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies, ed. Michael T. Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 356, HeinOnline.81 Alfred L. Brophy, letters to Bob L. Blackburn, 19 March 1999, 1058-1059, and 27 September 1999, 795-800, ‘Reconstructing the Dreamland: Contemplating Civil Rights Actions and Reparations for the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921’, February 2000, 699, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-202: Documentation Database and Correspondence, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-202.pdf.82 Maxine D. Jones, William W. Rogers, R. Tom Dye, Larry E. Rivers, and David R. Colburn, ‘A Documented History of the Incident Which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in January 1923’, Seminole Tribune, 4 March 1994, ProQuest Diversity Collection.83 Special Master’s Final Report in Rosewood Victims v. State of Florida (Tallahassee, Florida), 24 March 1994.84 Jones, et al., supra n 82.85 Bowens, supra n 40, 92–3.86 Tim Nickens, ‘Rosewood Bill Signed Into Law by Governor’, Miami Herald, 5 May 1994, NewsBank.87 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Meeting, 28 January 1999, 80, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.88 Krehbiel (1999), supra n 56.89 Investigative Sub-Committee, supra n 57.90 Brophy (2006), supra n 18, 242-3.91 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 4, 9.92 Brophy (2006), supra n 18, 243 and 254. As an example, see Daily Oklahoman (2001), supra n 46.93 Bowens, supra n 40, 9.94 Danney Goble, ‘Commission Members’ Suggestions Regarding the Final Report’, 22 December 2000, 102, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.95 Brophy (2000), supra n 81, 705.96 TRRC (2000b), supra n 59; TRRC (2001), supra n 4, 15-20.97 TRRC (2000a), supra n 58, 85-6.98 Investigative Sub-Committee, supra n 57, 975-7.99 ‘Survivors’ Stories Submitted to: Oklahoma Legislative Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot’, 26 January 2001, 800-951, Tulsa Race Riot Commission collection, microfilm roll OHS-201: Commission Information and Research, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/research/digital/2006.018/OHS-201.pdf.100 Brophy (2006), supra n 18, 243.101 TRRC (2001), supra n 4, ii.102 Ibid.103 Romano, supra n 66.104 Melissa Nelson, ‘Panel Urges Reparations for Race Riot. Tulsa Survivors Watch Emotional Debate’, Daily Oklahoman, 5 February 2000, NewBank.105 ‘Klan, Guard actions murky in race riot report’, Daily Oklahoman, 16 December 2000, NewsBank.106 Randy Krehbiel, ‘Riot Panel Votes for Reparations’, Tulsa World, 5 February 2000, NewsBank; ‘Report Released’, Tulsa World, 2 March 2001, NewsBank.107 Brophy (2006), supra n 18, 244.108 Lisa J. Laplante, ‘Just Repair’, Cornell International Law Journal, 48, no. 3 (2015): 527; Simon Robins, ‘Failing Victims? The Limits of Transitional Justice in Addressing the Needs of Victims of Violations’, Human Rights and International Legal Discourse 11, no. 1 (2017): 41-58, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/122438.109 Gayle, supra n 45.110 ‘About Us’, Justice For Greenwood, n.d., accessed 20 January 2023, https://www.justiceforgreenwood.org/about-us/.111 Campbell Robertson and Audra D. S. Burch, ‘Anniversary Event for Tulsa Race Massacre Unraveled Over Reparations’, New York Times, 29 May 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/tulsa-race-massacre-commission.html.112 Alexander v. Oklahoma, 382 F.3d 1206 (10th Cir., 2004).113 Global Rights and Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Petitioners, on behalf of John Melvin Alexander, et al. United States Citizens, Victims, v. the United States of America, Petition Alleging Violations of the Human Rights of John Melvin Alexander et al. by the United States of America, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States (26 October 2005), https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=993646.114 Jim Myers, ‘Race Riot Hearing: Survivors Take Case to Rights Committee’, Tulsa World, 3 March 2007, NewsBank.115 Randle v. Tulsa, in the District Court in and for Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma, Case No. CV-2020-1179, https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=tulsa&number=CV-2020-1179&cmid=3378285.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBryan H. JonesBryan H. Jones is a student in the Master of Liberal Studies programme at the Simmons School of Education & Development, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, USA. He spent his previous career as a Certified Public Accountant and as a partner in two major accounting and advisory firms. In those roles, he advised special corporate committees formed to investigate malfeasance and evaluated their work. He holds a BBA in Accounting from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, USA.
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