A lawsuit filed this week in Tulsa, Okla., is seeking reparations from the city and other government localities over one of the worst race massacres in U.S. history nearly a century ago.
Plaintiffs in the case include 105-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, a survivor of the 1921 massacre, along with relatives of several other victims, according to documents filed in Tulsa County District Court.
The complaint states that Randle suffers from “emotional and physical distress that continues to this day” from the attacks led by white mobs that killed as many as 300 African Americans in the city.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the plaintiffs, wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed earlier this year that the idea of “reparations” for past racial injustices “is finally losing its taboo.”
Reparations over the massacre were also sought in 2005, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal to hear the case, The Oklahoman reported.