Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks After Justice Department Publishes Tulsa Race Massacre Report

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

It is an honor to be with you all here today in Greenwood. This community has been strong and resilient despite the lingering effects of a civil rights crime that stands out in its magnitude, barbarity and ruthless brutality. As you know, on May 31, 1921, a group of white Tulsans, far too organized to be called a mob, invaded Greenwood and engaged in theft, arson, assault and murder. They killed hundreds of Black people in Greenwood and wounded hundreds more. They put houses to the torch and unleashed chaos and violence that separated families. It took days, sometimes weeks, before people knew whether their loved ones survived. After the pillaging was done, authorities confined the now-homeless Black residents to internment camps, allowing them to leave only if a white person vouched for them.

Black Tulsans suffered a further indignity when an all-white grand jury blamed the massacre not on the white people who ravaged Greenwood, but on the Black men who dared to try to prevent a lynching at the courthouse.

Promises of aid for rebuilding were broken. Attempts to seek redress through the courts failed, both in the 1920s and in this century.

The Work We Did

Despite the scale and impact of this crime, the Justice Department has never publicly addressed it. And so, on Sept. 30, the department launched a review and evaluation of the Tulsa Race Massacre. A team from the Criminal Section’s Cold Case Unit, including Barbara Bosserman, the unit’s deputy chief, and Walt Henry, a retired FBI agent who is one of two cold case investigators, began the review at once. They are here today.

The team immediately began reviewing books, articles and primary sources on the massacre. Two weeks after the launch, the team visited Tulsa to conduct interviews. They talked to survivors and descendants. Justice for Greenwood arranged many of these interviews and provided our team with relevant documents. Justice for Greenwood likewise arranged for a descendant of a massacre survivor to give the team a tour of Greenwood.

Other descendants, including those in the wider Greenwood diaspora, reached out to us or were referred by friends or family. We met with them either here in Tulsa, by phone or over virtual platforms. The team also viewed first-hand accounts of the massacre, available at the Helmerich Center in Tulsa. The late Eddie Faye Gates deserves credit for recording so many first-hand accounts of Black massacre survivors. In addition, the team reviewed documents in the special collection at Tulsa University’s McFarlin Library and material in the Ruth Sigler Avery Collection at the Oklahoma State University in Tulsa. Tulsa University’s College of Law provided us access to pleadings from some of the original lawsuits filed by noted attorney B.C. Franklin. And the team found and reviewed a previously undiscovered 1921 investigative report written by an agent of the Bureau of Investigation, a precursor to today’s FBI.

The team met with members of Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center, Deep Greenwood, and with representatives of community organizations. The review also included meetings with historians, journalists and scholars who have written about the massacre. Further, the team met with Tulsa Police Department officials and others in city government. Historic Vernon AME Church, where we are now, allowed the team to view its basement, the only part of the church that survived the massacre. One expert provided a tour of the Tulsa exhibit in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The team told me that almost everyone they met was open, warm and eager to help. We thank the people of Greenwood for their generosity, for their endurance and for their remarkable kindness in the wake of such hateful acts.

Now, a little over three months since we started, we have produced a 123-page, meticulously sourced report.

Factual Findings

Let’s turn to what we found. On the night of May 31, 1921, a violent attack by some 10,000 white Tulsans destroyed the thriving Black community in Greenwood. The attack was systematic and coordinated, transcending mere mob violence. The trigger for the massacre — as for many lynchings and other acts of violence in that era — was an alleged assault by a Black man on a white woman, here, a supposed assault by a 19-year-old shoe shiner named Dick Rowland against a young white elevator operator. A local newspaper sensationalized the story and soon, a lynch mob of white Tulsans massed outside the courthouse.

Black men from Greenwood, including ex-soldiers who had returned from World War I, came to the courthouse to protect Rowland. But to the white mob, this was an unacceptable challenge to the social order. The mob grew. A confrontation broke out. Although there are conflicting accounts, the Bureau of Investigation report credits the statement of a white witness that a white man deliberately fired the first shots into a group of Black men because they were cursing at white people.

However it began, violence escalated quickly. Tulsa police deputized hundreds of white residents with virtually no screening. Many of them had just been drinking and agitating for a lynching. Law enforcement officers helped organize these special deputies — as well as other white Tulsans — into the forces that decimated Greenwood. A Tulsa police officer went to a nearby town to recruit more people for the attack.

Violence was initially disorganized. But at daybreak on June 1, 1921, a whistle blew, and the violence and arson became systematic. White Tulsans, many of whom had recently drilled together as the “Home Guard,” formed to replace members of the National Guard who had gone overseas during the Great War, became coordinated and efficient in their destruction. They murdered, looted, burned and destroyed 35 city blocks while Greenwood’s residents tried desperately to defend their homes. As the fires consumed Greenwood, many Black families fled. White residents chased them across and beyond the city, taking men, women, children, the elderly and the infirm into custody. The destruction was total. The survivors were left with nothing.

Law enforcement officers from both the Tulsa Police and the National Guard disarmed Black residents, confiscated their weapons and detained many in makeshift camps under armed guard. In addition, credible reports asserted that at least some law enforcement officers participated in the murders, arson, and looting. At, the very least, they turned a blind eye to the mayhem.

City officials initially promised to help Greenwood rebuild. But the white-led government of Tulsa not only broke that promise; it obstructed efforts to rebuild. White local leaders rejected outside aid, claiming they could handle the recovery, but then didn’t. Instead, claiming the area was best suited for industrial use, they imposed harsh new fire codes that priced residents out of the area.

Legal Findings

Our report concludes that, had today’s more robust civil rights laws been in effect in 1921, federal prosecutors could have pursued federal hate crime charges against the perpetrators of the massacre, including both public officials and private citizens. In addition, if modern interpretations of federal civil rights laws had applied in 1921, police officers, public officials and anyone acting in concert with them could have faced prosecution for willfully violating the civil rights of massacre victims. But few of these legal avenues were available in 1921, and any that existed were not pursued. Now, the statute of limitations has expired for all federal civil rights offenses that the government could have pursued. Moreover, as best we can determine, no perpetrator is still alive, and federal prosecution would almost certainly be foreclosed by the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause, which requires the government to provide live witnesses who can be cross examined by the accused. Such witnesses would need sufficient knowledge to prove a particular defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Moving Forward

We recognize that some may find it painful or dissatisfying that the department cannot now prosecute anyone for these heinous crimes. I certainly feel that way. But I believe that this review is nonetheless important. It corrects the historical narrative; it recognizes and documents the traumatic loss suffered by the residents of Greenwood; and it puts the Justice Department on record. While legal and practical limitations prevent us from prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes in 1921, the historical reckoning is far from over. If legal limits have stymied the pursuit of justice, work in the community continues so that future generations understand the scale and significance of this atrocity.

For the descendants of that lost Greenwood community, the fight for justice, while hindered by time and legal constraints, continues to seek truth and recognition.