Survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Kinney Booker.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: FEBRUARY 22, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 022201np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: State Commission Recommends Oklahoma Make Reparations to Black Survivors of Tulsa Race Riots
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with FRESH AIR.

The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 is considered by many historians to be the bloodiest race riot in American history. African-Americans were shot, burned alive, and tied to cars and dragged through the streets by a white mob. About 1,000 homes were burned down.

The Oklahoma state appointed a panel to investigate what really happened and recommend whether reparations should be given to survivors.

On today's FRESH AIR, we'll hear from the author of the new report which recommends reparations and could set an important precedent. And we'll hear from a survivor of the riot whose house was burned down. He was 8 years old at the time.

The Tulsa race riot of 1921, coming up on FRESH AIR.

First, the news.

(NEWS BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

On a spring day in 1921, the African-American section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was burned down by a white mob. The riot was set off after a black man was accused of attacking a white woman and was threatened with the possibility of lynching.

In this neighborhood of about 8,000 people, more than 1,000 homes were burned to the ground, thousands of people were left homeless, and an estimated 100 to 300 people were killed.

The Oklahoma legislature recently appointed a commission to investigate what happened during the riot and whether the 60 to 70 remaining survivors should receive reparations.

In a few minutes, we'll hear from a survivor whose house was burned down.

First we'll hear from Alfred Brophy. He wrote the Tulsa Race Riot Commission's report, which recommends reparations and could an important precedent for other states.

The report was presented to the legislature earlier this month. Brophy is a professor of law at Oklahoma City University.

I asked him to describe the scope of the destruction after the riot.

ALFRED BROPHY, TULSA RACE RIOT COMMISSION: The destruction was extraordinary. More than 30 blocks of Greenwood, the black section of Tulsa, were burned to the ground. Some of the photographs that you see of the riot scene are reminiscent of Carthage or Hiroshima after World War Two, very little left standing. You'll see occasionally scenes of concrete or piles of brick, telephone poles, metal bed stands, and very little else.

GROSS: What set off the riot?

BROPHY: The riot was set off on the evening of May 31, 1921, when a group of black World War One veterans showed up at the Tulsa County Courthouse to try and stop what they thought was going to be the lynching of 19-year-old Dick Rowland. He was a young black man who worked shining shoes in an office building in downtown Tulsa, and he'd gone up to the top of a nearby building to use the segregated bathroom facilities there.

As he was exiting the elevator, the story, so far as we can now reconstruct it, is that he tripped and fell into 17-year-old Mary (ph) Page, who was a white woman who worked as the elevator operator. And at the time, she screamed. He ran out of the elevator, and nobody thought anything else of it.

"The Tulsa Tribune," one of the two leading white newspapers in town, picked this story up in its afternoon edition on May 31 and ran two stories, so far as we can tell, one of them talking about the attempted assault on Mary Page, and the other one an editorial which has since been lost, which we think was encouraging folks to go and lynch Dick Rowland. The editorial's been lost, actually, so we don't know exactly what it said.

Folks then down in Greenwood, the black section of town, started to get worried that Dick Rowland was going to be lynched, and there's some interesting stories about sort of what's going on in black and white Tulsa. The newspaper hits the streets about 4 P.M., and people down in Greenwood get very agitated, very concerned that Rowland is going to be lynched.

By about 7:00 in the evening, a contingent of maybe 25 to 30 black World War One veterans, who've gone home, put on their uniforms to show their bona fides, come down to the courthouse and offer their assistance to help protect Dick Rowland, who at this point has been arrested and is in the jail at the top of the Tulsa county courthouse.

At this point, by 7 P.M., there's maybe 400 or so whites, mostly men, but there's some women and children also, at the courthouse. The sheriff assures the men there's going to be no lynching, encourages them to go back across the tracks into Greenwood, and tries to disperse the white crowd as well.

There's some success with that, but by about 9, 9:30, the white crowd at the courthouse has gotten larger. People back in Greenwood are still very agitated. They make another trip down to the courthouse. And at this point, there's -- estimates are varying here, it's maybe 50 to 75 black veterans, and again the sheriff encourages them, Go home, there isn't going to be a lynching.

GROSS: So the authorities seem to be trying to quiet things down and disperse the black and white crowds that have gathered, so how did things reach the point of riot?

BROPHY: I think there was a failure of the Tulsa police department at this point. Lots of -- there's lots of talk right after the riot that 20 armed men could have easily dispersed the crowd, but they failed to do that. In fact, that's one of the charges that Police Chief Gustafson is brought up on after the riot for having failed to disperse both the blacks and whites.

Now, after this second confrontation, apparently some police officers are trying to disarm the black veterans who have shown up. One person, we think is a police officer, it's a little bit unclear, is taking guns away, says to one of the leaders, Where are you going with that gun? And he says, I'll use it if I have to.

There's a struggle, the gun goes off. And then, in the parlance of the time, all hell breaks loose.

GROSS: One of the things that seems to have either turned this into a riot or made the riot even worse than it otherwise would have been is that a lot of the men who were initially part of the white mob ended up getting deputized as assistant police. Why were they deputized, and what did they do after being deputized?

BROPHY: You've put your finger on what strikes me as one of the key aspects of this riot. Right after the initial confrontation at the courthouse, when, in the words of the police chief and many other people at the time, all hell breaks loose, the response of the police department is to deputize dozens, perhaps hundreds, of men. There are allegations at the time that they're told to go home, get a gun, and get a black person, except they used much more offensive language than that, of course.

Why exactly the police department did this is an important question. There's substantial evidence that they thought this was, to use the language of the time, a Negro uprising.

Think about this, the sort of -- the way in which the black World War One veterans clashed with the ideas of the position they should occupy in Tulsa society. Those veterans, men who had traveled the world, came back with wonderful ideas about equality. And at the time, people in Greenwood are talking about the NAACP's anti-lynching campaign, the bill in Congress to prevent lynching. They're talking about the importance of arming themselves and protecting themselves against white attack.

In September 1920, there was a lynching on the same weekend in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City. In Tulsa it was a white man who was lynched, in Oklahoma City it was a black man. And "The Tulsa Star," the leading black newspaper at the time in Tulsa, editorialized, excoriated, blacks in Oklahoma City for not having saved that man.

They editorialized that it was their legal right, indeed their duty, to arm themselves, march to the jail, apprise the sheriff that they were there to protect life, and that they should take life if need be to uphold the law and protect the prisoner.

So at the time of the riot, the police think this is an uprising, and want to do everything they can to put down the uprising. It's a climate of extraordinary fear that leads to this mass deputization.

GROSS: Once the white men were deputized as assistant police, what did they do during the actual riot?

BROPHY: There's a lot of testimony that the people largely responsible for arresting blacks and then as soon as homes and businesses were vacant, burning them.

GROSS: So it's people suddenly in this official capacity who are doing a lot of the damage. The National Guard was called in. How did the National Guard handle itself?

BROPHY: The National Guard is actually a very interesting story. Unlike the special deputies who, I think, were largely responsible for the destruction, the National Guard we need to break into two groups, the local units of the Guard, and the units from Oklahoma City. The local units of the Guard were called into operation about 9:30 or 10:00 on the evening of May 31.

Their instructions from the governor are to not shoot until -- unless fired upon and try and protect lives. Also, to arrest blacks and take them to the convention center. And by about 3 A.M. on the morning of June 1, they're actively engaged in disarming and arresting blacks, turning them over to the civilian authorities, where they're taken to the convention center and detained.

There is no evidence that either the local or the national -- or the out of town units of the Guard were involved in the burning. I think there's some culpability on the part of the local units of the Guard for simply arresting blacks and then leaving their property unprotected where it could be burned by the special deputies and the mob.

GROSS: What was the motivation for arresting and detaining African-Americans?

BROPHY: That's very interesting. There's some evidence that there was concern this was an uprising, and they wanted to disarm and end the violence in that way. There's also some evidence that particularly the units of the National Guard from Oklahoma City were primarily concerned with trying to protect lives, and in that way simply arrest and put into protective custody the Greenwood residents.

Now, that strikes me as a very favorable interpretation for the Guard. There is a lot of evidence afterwards that the out-of-town units of the Guard were very important in protecting lives, and that they treated Greenwood residents with respect.

You can contrast -- there are photographs of the riot you can contrast. One is titled "Captured Negroes on the Way to Convention Center," and they're walking with their hands up. That's a photograph of the special deputies taking Greenwood residents to the convention center.

When you contrast that with National Guard troops, folks are not being marched with their hands up. It is a very different, I think, way of treating the people who are in custody.

GROSS: My guest is Professor Alfred Brophy, author of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Alfred Brophy is my guest. He's a professor of law at Oklahoma City University. He wrote the report, "Reconstructing the Dreamland: Contemplating Civil Rights Actions and Reparations for the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921." And the commission that he's part of is recommending reparations be paid to survivors of this 1921 race riot. And the report has been forwarded to the state legislature.

After the riot was over, and after the African-Americans who were kept at this detention center were released, were there any efforts at all made by the city or the state to help African-Americans rebuild their homes, rebuild the neighborhood, rebuild the stores in the neighborhood?

BROPHY: There were some efforts, actually. The reconstruction -- the private reconstruction committee in Tulsa collected, I think, about $100,000. There were wonderful stories about some of the local employers spending money to reconstruct houses for their employees who lived in Greenwood. I think that's one of the really important stories about the riot that people haven't focused on, is the way in which, you know, churches, as well as the Red Cross expended money and effort to try and reconstruct Greenwood.

GROSS: But it obviously wasn't enough money to do a very effective job at reconstructing that neighborhood.

BROPHY: Property losses were estimated at $1.5 million, and as I say, I think it was about $100,000 that was expended of private money. It certainly was not the effort that one would have hoped Tulsa, as an entire city, would put forward. In fact, one of the interesting stories about the riot is, just after the riot, the city council passes a zoning ordinance extending the fire limits to encompass Greenwood and prohibiting rebuilding of Greenwood with anything other than fireproof material.

And that was -- made rebuilding prohibitively expensive. That was eventually struck down as an interference with property rights.

GROSS: Was that seen as an intentional way of preventing African-Americans from rebuilding?

BROPHY: It's very interesting, yes. At the time it was -- the zoning ordinance was passed, there was an article in the newspaper discussing the reasons for it. One was that they wanted to expand the -- this would allow the expansion of the industrial district and the railroad yard that was there. And the second was to get more separation between the races.

So essentially the zoning ordinance was designed to prohibit rebuilding by blacks in greenwood.

GROSS: And these were the days when you could say that the intention is to separate the races, and that could be perceived as legit, a legit motive.

BROPHY: Absolutely. in fact, Tulsa still had a racially restrictive zoning ordinance, which the Supreme Court of the United States had struck down in 1917.

GROSS: Well, let's look at the issue of reparations. That's why your commission was convened in the first place. And the commission has in fact recommended that reparations be given to the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot, that survivors who had their homes destroyed or their businesses destroyed.

Let's look at some of the key factors in deciding on reparations. You say that, you know, one of the issues is that city officials failed to protect the lives of African-American residents. What are the specifics with that?

BROPHY: I think perhaps the strongest argument in favor of reparations is that the city had an affirmative hand in arresting blacks and burning Greenwood.

GROSS: Through the deputizing of the white men.

BROPHY: Through the deputies, sure. And this is something that, in the trial of the police chief afterwards for neglect of duty during the riot, the police commissioner acknowledges that "We deputized people we shouldn't have deputized." There were people who may have lost their head after they got the badge. And this is the police chief who acknowledges this.

And even the Oklahoma supreme court, not known for its enlightened attitudes towards race in the 1920s, acknowledges in an insurance case that many of the people doing the burning were wearing deputy police badges.

GROSS: So the city not only didn't do enough to protect black residents, it took actions that helped destroy property and kill residents.

BROPHY: Absolutely. And I think that's what distinguishes and makes so -- the case for reparations in Greenwood so strong. This is not a case like Rosewood, where there was a terrible riot over the course of about a week in 1923 in Florida. The Florida legislature gave about $2 million -- set aside about $2 million to help victims and their descendants of the Rosewood massacre. But in Rosewood, the state officials knew about the riot and didn't do anything to protect Rosewood residents.

In Greenwood, I think the case is substantially stronger. Many of the people doing the burning were, at least temporarily, police officials. And then there's also on the part of at least the local units of the National Guard, they were arresting people, leaving their property defenseless, and that allowed, then, the mobs and the special deputies to come along and burn.

Now, even if one were to say, Well, these special deputies were acting sort of outside of the scope of their authority, there is still precedent for reparations when a local government fails to protect. Illinois, for instance, had a statute that provided for compensation when local officials didn't protect against a mob. So people whose property had been destroyed by a mob in East St. Louis and in Chicago in 1919 were able to recover.

GROSS: What about the National Guard? Does the behavior of the National Guard that was called in during the riot enter into your recommendation that reparations be given?

BROPHY: I think the National Guard is going to be central. It strikes me as though there's lots of reason for giving reparations if all we have is the sort of misbehavior of local Tulsa officials. But in Oklahoma there seems to be a sentiment growing that unless people can show that indeed the state, rather than the city of Tulsa, had some culpability, that the state legislature will not pay reparations.

GROSS: And what do you think the culpability of the National Guard is?

BROPHY: I think the units of the National Guard that arrived from Oklahoma City at about 9:00 on June 1 did a great deal to actually save lives. There's lots of testimony from both blacks and whites that the Oklahoma City units of the National Guard ended the riot, that they in fact shot a number of white rioters -- in fact, I have heard it said that one of the great secrets of the riot is the number of whites that were killed by the National Guard in putting down the riot.

I think we're going to be focusing largely on the local units of the National Guard. Those local units came into operation at about 9:30 or 10:00 on the evening of May 31, and from about 3:00 in the morning on June 1 on, they were systematically arresting blacks and turning them over -- disarming them, arresting them, and turning them over to civilian authorities where they were detained at the convention center.

Those arrests seemed to have been based exclusively on race. There is testimony in one of the after-action reports of a local unit of the Guard that when they were fired upon, they'd arrested some blacks, they were taking them down to the convention center, and at that point, white rioters opened fire. And instead of going and trying to arrest the white rioters, the local unit of the Guard marches their prisoners at a faster pace.

So I think there's a lot of evidence that suggests the local units of the guard were working in close contact with the special deputies, the civilian authorities who we know were doing much of the burning.

GROSS: Alfred Brophy wrote the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report recommending reparations. He'll be back in the second half of the show, along with a survivor of the riot.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Coming up, a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riot. Kenney Booker was 8 years old when white men came to his home, took his father away, and then burned the house down.

And we continue our conversation with law professor Alfred Brophy, author of the new Tulsa Race Riot Commission report recommending reparations.

(BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

On today's program, we're talking about the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, during which the African-American section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was burned down by a white mob. About 8,000 people lived in the Greenwood neighborhood at the time. Around 60 to 70 people are still alive.

The Oklahoma legislature recently appointed a commission to recommend whether reparations should be given. In a few minutes, we'll hear more from law professor Alfred Brophy, who wrote the commission's report recommending reparations for survivors.

With me is one of the survivors, Kenney Booker. He was 8 years old at the time of the riot. His family's home was burned down by white men. As an adult, Booker moved from Oklahoma to California. He eventually returned to Tulsa.

I spoke to him from his home there and asked him how he first realized there was a riot going on.

KENNEY BOOKER, TULSA RACE RIOT SURVIVOR: Well, I didn't know it was a riot, but we had been playing outside a little bit. My father said, "Go inside, I hear shooting, and there's trouble brewing." He said, "Go upstairs and into the attic." We had an attic that was floored (ph), and we'd go play up there sometimes. It had easy access by having a good strong ladder.

OK, that's when we first heard about it. Didn't know it was a race riot at the time.

GROSS: So then what happened?

BOOKER: Well, in a few minutes -- well, I don't know how long it was, how much time had intervened. But we were -- we went upstairs. We heard -- my father, who stayed downstairs, looking around, seeing what was happening, he -- someone came to the door talking very loud and rough, asked him, "N*gg*r, do you have a gun?" Father, soft-spoken ordinarily, but he said, loud enough for us to hear, "I don't have a gun." They said, "Well, let's go."

They were rounding up people (inaudible) Negroes, take them to the shelters, found out later. At that time, my father said, loud enough for us to hear him, "Please do not set my fire -- house on fire," because back of us, we were near a town, the white section, and back of us where they started burning up houses, were burning everything, so he made this statement.

At that time, we realized that he was going to get out of there if necessary.

GROSS: Who were the white men who came to the door?

BOOKER: I didn't find out till later, but they were either citizens deputized by police department, or some members of Klans, I think -- Ku Klux Klans, I think. I'm not sure. But they were white. And had the Negroes go into town, going down to the white section. We went -- my father, I found out later, didn't know then, went to one of the internment camps -- sites, convention hall or center (ph), OK?

GROSS: What about you? What did you do?

BOOKER: We stayed up in the attic until we -- father had spoken loud, and then we came down, because we smelled smoke, and we realized then that they must have set our house on fire after he told them not to, because all back of us was burning. So we got down and got out in a hurry.

GROSS: Was it hard to get out of the house?

BOOKER: Not too hard, because it wasn't a sudden explosive type of fire. It was going on slowly. So we were able to get out without (inaudible) up in the attic, (inaudible) myself and my mother.

GROSS: What did you do when you got downstairs? Did you stay in the neighborhood, or leave?

BOOKER: I tell you, we got out in a hurry, because we heard bullets raining on our rooftop. We thought it was airplanes, and it might have been some machine guns (inaudible). But anyhow, when we got down, they had men, white men, coming along escorting Negro people, men, women, children, to the convention center. So we were escorted along. And while we were going along, my poor sister, who was only 5 at the time, terrified, she said in a terrified, shaken voice, "Kenney, is the world on fire?"

We were walking toward the white section, and there was no fire there, because they were being protected by the fire department. The fire (inaudible). Anyhow, I told her, "No, but we're in a heck of a lot of trouble, baby." So this is -- we went on the convention center from there. Other people (inaudible), and bullets was whizzing, singing along in the air (inaudible). But the telephone poles were behind us, and getting closer, we were falling (ph), (inaudible) burned down (inaudible).

We went on -- we were conducted to the convention center, OK, (inaudible).

GROSS: So what was it like in the convention center, which was being used as a detention center? Did you feel like you were being -- that you were put there to be punished, or that you were put there to be protected from the white mob?

BOOKER: Well, we were put there because they were rounding up the Negro men, trying to get any of them that had protective guns and so forth. But were in -- we were being protected in a way, because they're not -- they weren't shooting anything around in the convention center, and the places where they carried the victims, the Negro victims. So we were not (inaudible) protected, not -- we had to be, in a way, because they weren't -- they were burning our homes down and (inaudible) weren't in the center.

But they were doing anything to the people in the center.

GROSS: How long were you kept at the convention center?

BOOKER: This I can't remember. (inaudible) for me to try to remember all that (inaudible), I was 6 -- 8 years old, and now I'm almost 87, 86. But I can't give you accurate time, but it was a few hours, anyway.

GROSS: And when they released you from the detention center, where did you go? Was your house burned to the ground?

BOOKER: Well, they weren't releasing any Negroes from the center unless someone responsible, who they considered responsible (inaudible) those who were employees of the Negro men or women. We had -- my father worked for Acuff Wilcox (ph). He was an oil tycoon, (inaudible) millionaire. And he asked for the Booker family. And at that time, we found out that my father was there. And he took all the whole family to his mansion, and we stayed there.

GROSS: What kind of work did your father do for this millionaire?

BOOKER: He was a chauffeur and a handyman. He was given quite a bit of consideration, because he could do things very well for this man.

GROSS: How long did you live in the millionaire's mansion?

BOOKER: This I can't tell you, but we lived there long enough for my sister (inaudible) play with his kids (inaudible). I can't tell you how long, but they had to clear all the debris from all the homes that burned down, so they could put tents up. So I can't tell you how long, but we stayed there long enough for that to happen.

GROSS: And then did you have to move into a tent?

BOOKER: We moved into a tent for a while, yes. (inaudible) who, with my father's help, and finally we were able to get (inaudible) tent, we were lucky enough to have a floor, because (inaudible) rain, rain, and rain after. Looked like there was an aftermath of (inaudible) burning, started raining, raining. So we were lucky enough to have a floor.

GROSS: Was your house completely destroyed by the fire?

BOOKER: Oh, yes, nothing but rubble.

GROSS: And after living in the tent for a while, when did you move into a house again?

BOOKER: Another time that I can't tell you how long it was. But we did finally get back into a house. The white people, I understand, my father Washington saying, they would not sell us -- sell him lumber (inaudible). They were trying to prevent the Negroes from (inaudible) their homes back for a while. (inaudible) the city or someone who was responsible was sued by lawyers, and finally they were able to rebuild. But it took a while. You couldn't get materials for it.

GROSS: So your father had a house built for the family?

BOOKER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

GROSS: And was it in the same neighborhood?

BOOKER: Yes, it was, almost the same place. It was difficult (inaudible), I imagine, to try to locate the places where you lived before. But it was practically the same place.

GROSS: So what was left of the neighborhood? I mean, were there any stores left, any other homes let? Or was everything built from scratch?

BOOKER: Everything that was -- unless it was very far from (inaudible), Negro (inaudible) from separation of whites and blacks going north were way in the back (inaudible) some shacks left, but all our homes were destroyed by fire, most all of the businesses destroyed. I think the high school, which was a combination elementary-high school, Booker T. Washington, was not destroyed, whether by plan or not. But it was one of the places where (inaudible) shelter for a time, you know.

GROSS: Had your family owned the house that was burned down?

BOOKER: Oh, yes. We had a nice three-bedroom home, car, piano. I learned how to play the piano young. We had these things, yes.

GROSS: Did you get any kind of compensation from the...

BOOKER: Not (inaudible).

GROSS: ... government or an insurance company?

BOOKER: Nothing. Insurance company (inaudible) my father had insurance, but other people said the insurance company would not honor the black homes that were (inaudible). But we didn't get any compensation. Everything was lost.

In fact, could I make a statement about reparation?

GROSS: Please.

BOOKER: Well, my idea is this. They claim they don't know whether the state or the local government was responsible. But now, blacks and whites were paying taxes for protection like police and fire department. The money was not black, it was green in color. But we (inaudible) have protection. Instead of having protection for us, that money was being used for people who were destroying our homes.

(inaudible) what an incredible thing that was happening. We were paying money at that time for protection, but the protection was for the people who were killing us and destroying our homes. That's what I wanted to say about reparation. Certainly there should be reparation, financial. I don't mean (inaudible), I don't want (inaudible) my friends and all our homes was burned. I don't need that, I don't need that. I need, I think, financial reparation.

Thank you for letting me say that.

GROSS: Oh, sure. If the government does agree to give reparations to the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa riot, as one of the survivors, what would you hope to do with the money that you would get?

BOOKER: Well, I'll be frank with you, (inaudible), but I would move, get away from this town as quickly as I could.

But I guess I'll have to (inaudible), you know, some of the survivors. I mean, some of my relatives. But I would use part of it to get away from Tulsa, that's for sure.

The prejudice is still here. It's better, things are better, but it's still here.

GROSS: Do you ever run into white people of your age, and -- or -- and wonder if they're the offspring of the people who burned down your house?

BOOKER: Oh, yes, I do. Most of them will say -- oh, I think I talked to one. They said, "Well, we weren't responsible," which is true that it didn't happen (ph), but just like they inherit the good things that their family did, being helped by (ph) Negroes, they also inherit the bad things they did. They didn't do it, but the government did, and that should be -- they should have reparation, we should.

GROSS: Kenney Booker was 8 years old at the time of the Tulsa race riot.

Coming up, more with the author of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report recommending reparations for survivors.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Let's get back to our conversation with Alfred Brophy, the law professor who wrote the report for the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. The commission was created by the Oklahoma state legislature. The report which was given to the legislature earlier this month describes what happened during the 1921 riot and recommends that reparations be given to the survivors.

There are an estimated 60 to 70 people who would be eligible.

A lot of your historical information comes from an interesting source. It was a lawsuit against an insurance company. The suit was filed by a man who is believed to be Native American. His last name was Redfern. He lost a theater and a hotel in the riot. And his insurance company wouldn't compensate him for his losses, so he sued the company.

Tell us a little bit more about this lawsuit and its relevance to the question of reparations.

BROPHY: Well, Redfern was trying to recover on his insurance policy, and his insurance company said, as long as the property was burned during a riot, we're not liable, because there's a riot exclusion clause.

Redfern relied on some other state's precedent to show that if the police burned the property as part of putting down the riot, the riot exclusion clause wouldn't let the insurance company out from liability, that in fact it was -- if it's burned as part of official action, the riot exclusion clause doesn't apply.

He then used -- wanted -- used this as an opportunity to develop evidence that in fact the special police officers had done much of the burning, and he has extensive testimony from Greenwood residents that the people who were doing the burning were wearing police badges.

The Oklahoma supreme court ultimately construes the riot exclusion clause broadly and says, look, even if these special officers were doing the burning, that wasn't part of their official action, and therefore it's sort of part of the general riot, and Redfern ends up not recovering.

But it's a -- for historical purposes...

GROSS: Well, but that's interesting, because even though he doesn't recover, basically the precedent is, the ruling is that the deputies were responsible for a lot of what happened in the riot.

BROPHY: It's a wonderful opinion, and it's particularly important when you think this isn't some socialist Columbia history professor or W.E.B. DuBois who's writing this, this is the supreme court in 1920. The (inaudible) -- the Oklahoma supreme court in the 1920s, not known for its enlightened attitudes towards race.

GROSS: Any other reasons why you're recommending that reparations be given to the survivors of the riot?

BROPHY: I think that there's sort of four reasons counseling in favor of reparations. First is the culpability of the city and, to a lesser extent, the state. The second is that there's still a living connection. The riot, I understand, was a long time ago. We are further from the riot today than the riot was from the days of Civil War.

And yet there are still about 60 people who were victims of the riot and are still alive. I think that human connection is fundamentally important.

There's another reason, though. (inaudible) asking for reparations not to correct some general societal discrimination. This was a very discrete harm concentrated in time and place. This isn't general societal discrimination, it is a very concrete harm.

And the fourth reason I think is important is, Tulsans at the time promised to make reparations. The chair of the reconstruction committee said, "Tulsa can only redeem herself from countrywide shame and humiliation by complete restitution and rehabilitation of the black belt. Tulsa weeps at this unspeakable crime and will make good the damage, so far as can be done, to the last penny."

GROSS: A promise not kept.

BROPHY: Not at all.

GROSS: So if the state legislature agrees with the commission report and decides to give reparations, what standards are you recommending be used to decide who gets the reparations, and how much money those individuals get?

BROPHY: That'll be a very interesting question, actually. What's in front of the legislature right now is a bill to extend the life of the commission. The first thing we need to, I think, focus on is completing the historical report.

And then once the legislature decides either to extend the life of the commission or just to move immediately to its recommendations, at the point at which they're deciding on actual reparations, I think there -- that we have a couple of models we can look to.

I suggested we look to the Civil Rights Act of 1988, which gives compensation to Japanese Americans interned during World War Two, and there they required, in order for survivors to be able to recover, they required that you be alive at the time, that is, in 1988, and then it was just a lump sum payment to each survivors. And I think that makes a lot of sense in this case, rather than trying to go back and figure out value of property lost and things that at this point are very, very difficult to do.

I think it would make sense to just sort of come up with a lump sum figure for each now-living survivor, and this could be done actually relatively -- at a relatively modest cost. You figure there are approximately 60 survivors, and give each of them $20,000, which is the precedent the Civil Rights Act of 1988 gave, that's less than a million and a half dollars. It's a very modest sum of money.

GROSS: Why compensate survivors but not compensate the sons and daughters of survivors who might have inherited property but couldn't because it was destroyed?

BROPHY: That's an excellent question. Part of that -- the answer, I think, turns on being able to prove with specificity damages. And also part of it turns on the idea that rather than going back and trying to right every wrong that the government has perpetrated, we want to focus on ones where we can identify some sort of still-living human connection.

I think something where we're giving compensation to people who are still alive will actually have a substantial amount of support.

GROSS: My guest is Alfred Brophy, author of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report, which recommends reparations for survivors of the 1921 riot. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Alfred Brophy. He's a professor of law at Oklahoma City University.

And you wrote the report, "Reconstructing the Dreamland: Contemplating Civil Rights Actions and Reparations for the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921." This is a report that was commissioned by the state legislature in Oklahoma, and the commission is recommending that reparations be given to the black survivors of this race riot.

There was a conference recently in Arkansas looking at a 1919 racial attack there in which about 200 African-Americans were killed. Do you think that this is going to be happening all over now, that states will be looking at race riots of the past and trying to determine...

BROPHY: What happened...

GROSS: ... if there should be reparations? Yes.

BROPHY: Absolutely. The Elaine, Arkansas, 1919 riot was a terrible riot. And after that, there were about eight black men who were essentially railroaded into death sentences. And it actually became a very famous U.S. Supreme Court case. Justice Holmes talks about how people were swept away, judge, jury, prosecutor, public, swept away in a wave of public passion. That public passion swept across Tulsa in 1921. And a great many other small towns in Oklahoma and other places throughout the United States.

And I think this is an important -- even if the Oklahoma legislature decides to never give reparations, we have succeeded a great deal in just bringing back into the public consciousness important pieces of our history.

GROSS: Now, I know that some groups are concerned that if Oklahoma gives reparations to the race riot survivors, then every group that thinks it's been wronged will be asking for reparations. Are you concerned about that?

BROPHY: I'm not. I think there are some very important limiting principles related to the Tulsa riot that suggest there won't be claims to right every single wrong in the past, only ones that are truly egregious across a large spectrum, and where we have some possibility of actually making things better.

BROPHY: Do you think that the Tulsa race riot and your commission's report comes into play at all in the question of should there be reparations for African-Americans whose ancestors were enslaved in America?

BROPHY: I think that Tulsa could be the sort of -- the proving ground for legal and, more importantly, moral arguments about reparations in all sorts of contexts, in international contexts, in the context of slavery as well. I think we're going to hear a great deal more about the case for reparations for slavery in the next few years.

Of course, under my sort of limiting principles, Tulsa wouldn't provide much of a precedent for reparations for slavery, since, for example, there aren't any currently living survivors of American slavery.

GROSS: Here's another question that I know some people are asking. Should people today have to pay for the sins of another generation?

BROPHY: That's a very interesting question. Lots of folks in Oklahoma say, We shouldn't have to pay for something we are not responsible for. The interesting thing from my perspective is, corporate entities have existences that are unrelated to the lives of any individual.

Let me give you an example. Mobil Oil Company began polluting the water of Cyril, Oklahoma, in the late 1940s, and as recently as the mid-1990s, they were responsible for paying for the cleanup of that water. It may very well be that the majority of Mobil shareholders weren't even alive in 1947 when the pollution began, and yet they still had to pay for it.

When you think about Tulsa as an entity that had a life, the city of Tulsa is an entity that has a life before and after people who were there. The city itself should have to pay.

GROSS: Well, Alfred Brophy, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

BROPHY: It's been my pleasure.

GROSS: Alfred Brophy is the author of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report, recommending that reparations be given to the survivors of the 1921 riot, which destroyed the African-American neighborhood known as Greenwood. Brophy is a law professor at Oklahoma City University. The Oklahoma state legislature has not yet voted on the issue of reparations.

FRESH AIR's senior producer today was Joan Toohey Wesman. FRESH AIR's interviews and reviews are produced by Monique Nazareth, Phyllis Myers, Naomi Person, and Amy Salit, with Ann Marie Baldonado and Patty Leswing, research assistance from Brendan Noonam.

I'm Terry Gross.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Alfred Brophy, Kenney Booker
High: In 1921, what many call the bloodiest race riot in U.S. history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 80 years later, a state commission has recommended reparations be made to the aged black survivors of the riots. Law Professor Alfred Brophy, a professor at the Oklahoma City University Law School, researched the issue of reparations and the riot for the state commission. Kenney Booker is one of the survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. He provides a first-person account of the riot.
Spec: Race Relations; Minorities; Cities; Violence; Tulsa, Oklahoma

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End-Story: State Commission Recommends Oklahoma Make Reparations to Black Survivors of Tulsa Race Riots
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