DoJ report acknowledges attack ‘was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence’
www.theguardian.com
The report came more than 100 years after a June 1921 report by the justice department’s Bureau of Investigation, a precursor to the FBI, blamed the massacre on Black men and alleged that perpetrators did not violate any federal laws.
The Friday DoJ report, however, acknowledged that the attack by white citizens on Black residents “was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence”.
“The Tulsa race massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the DoJ’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings, and locked the survivors in internment camps.”
The ‘invasion’ of Greenwood
On 31 May and 1 June 1921, white Tulsans put Greenwood, a community now remembered as Black Wall Street, under siege.
The DoJ’s findings acknowledged the role of Tulsa law enforcement in the massacre, including that of Tulsa police who “deputized hundreds of white residents, many of whom – immediately before being awarded a badge – had been drinking and agitating for [a lynching]”. According to the report, more than 500 men were deputized in less than 30 minutes.
The report includes reference to Walter White, a Black civil rights advocate who could pass for white. He wrote that he only had to provide his name, age and address to be appointed as a special duty. Following his appointment, White reported that he was told he “could now ‘go out and shoot any [N-word] you see and the law’ll be behind you’”. The review includes multiple acknowledgments of the extensive role of law enforcement and city officials encouraging white Tulsans to murder their Black neighbors.