Justice Department will launch civil rights review into 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Justice Department announced Monday it plans to launch a review of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, an attack by a white mob on a thriving Black district that is considered one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.

The review was launched under a federal cold-case initiative that has led to prosecutions of some Civil Rights Era cases, although Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said they have “no expectation” there is anyone living who could be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry. Still, the announcement of a first-ever federal probe into the massacre was embraced by descendants of survivors who have long criticized city and state leaders for not doing more to compensate those affected by the attack.

Clarke said the agency plans to issue a public report detailing its findings by the end of the year.

“We acknowledge descendants of the survivors, and the victims continue to bear the trauma of this act of racial terrorism,” Clarke said during her remarks in Washington.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the last known survivors of the massacre, 110-year-old Viola Fletcher and 109-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, described Clarke's announcement as a “joyous occasion.”

“It is about time,” said Solomon-Simmons, flanked by descendants of massacre survivors. “It only took 103 years, but this is a joyous occasion, a momentous day, an amazing opportunity for us to make sure that what happened here in Tulsa is understood for what it was — the largest crime scene in the history of this country.”

As many as 300 Black people were killed; more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches were destroyed; and thousands were forced into internment camps overseen by the National Guard when a white mob, including some deputized by authorities, looted and burned the Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court in June dismissed a lawsuit by survivors, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the city would make financial amends for the attack.

The nine-member court upheld the decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year, ruling that the plaintiff’s grievances about the destruction of the Greenwood district, although legitimate, did not fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute.

After the state Supreme Court turned away the lawsuit, Solomon-Simmons asked the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

Although investigations under the Act have led to successful prosecutions of Civil Rights Era cases, the DOJ acknowledged in a report to Congress last year that there are significant legal barriers to cases before 1968.

“Even with our best efforts, investigations into historic cases are exceptionally difficult, and rarely will justice be reached inside of a courtroom,” the agency noted in the report.

Since the Act was approved in 2008, the DOJ has opened for review 137 cases, involving 160 known victims. The agency has fully investigated and resolved 125 of those cases through prosecution, referral or closure.

The report also notes the Act has led to two successful federal prosecutions and three successful state prosecutions. Both federal prosecutions involved separate murders of Black men in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s.

The first federally assisted state prosecution under the initiative was against Klansmen who bombed a Birmingham, Alabama, church in 1963, killing four young girls. That prosecution in the early 2000s led to convictions and life sentences for two men involved in the bombing.

FILE - Lessie Benningfield Randle, a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, is pictured during the House General Government Committee meeting at the Oklahoma Capitol, Oct. 5, 2023. (Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman via AP)

FILE - Viola Ford Fletcher, a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, is pictured at the House General Government Committee meeting at the Oklahoma Capitol, Oct. 5, 2023. (Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman via AP, File)

FILE - Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division makes an announcement at a news conference, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FILE - In this 1921 image provided by the Library of Congress, smoke billows over Tulsa, Okla. (Alvin C. Krupnick Co./Library of Congress via AP, File)

BOSTON (AP) — Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre filed a lawsuit Monday against a U.S. Senate committee that pursued contempt charges against him for failing to appear before the panel despite being issued a subpoena.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, named nearly all members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee which has investigated Steward’s bankruptcy.

The lawsuit claims that the lawmakers are unlawfully violating de la Torre's constitutional rights.

It alleges that the members of the committee, by trying to compel de la Torre to answer questions about Steward's bankruptcy, are “collectively undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to ‘be compelled . . . to be a witness against himself.’”

De la Torre is asking the court to declare that all actions related to enforcement of the subpoena are invalid and unconstitutional — including the vote of the committee on Sept. 19 approving the criminal contempt resolution and its decision to present the resolution to the full Senate for a vote.

The Senate approved the resolution last week.

“No one can be compelled to testify when they exercise this right under these circumstances. Nor does the Constitution permit Congress to punish and intimidate him, or any other American, for exercising these rights,” William “Bill” Burck, a lawyer for de la Torre, said in a statement.

Anna Bahr, communications director for Sanders, dismissed the lawsuit.

“Democrats and Republicans on the HELP Committee came together and unanimously voted to hold Dr. de la Torre in contempt of Congress, as did the entire U.S. Senate," she said in a statement. “This case has no merit.”

The lawsuit comes a day before de la Torre is set to step down as CEO of Steward.

De la Torre has overseen Steward's network of some 30 hospitals around the country. The Texas-based company’s troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located.

A spokesperson for de la Torre said Saturday that he “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms” and “will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.”

Sanders said earlier this month that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”

Steward has shut down pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Louisiana, closed neonatal units in Florida and Texas, and eliminated maternity services at a hospital in Florida.

Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts said that over the past decade, Steward, led by de la Torre, and its corporate enablers, “looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes.”

Alexander Merton, an attorney for de la Torre, has said the fault instead lies with “the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system” and that the committee was trying to frame de la Torre as a criminal scapegoat. Merton has also said that de la Torre would agree to testify at a later date.

On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced her administration had formally seized a hospital through eminent domain to help keep it open and transition to a new owner. St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Boston was one of a group run by Steward. Operations will be transferred to Boston Medical Center.

Two other Steward-operated hospitals in Massachusetts were forced to close after qualified buyers could not be found during the bankruptcy process.

A senior shuttle bus going to a nearby retirement home rolls past a "Save Nashoba Hospital" sign displayed outside the former Nashoba Valley Medical Center, which closed on Aug. 31, 2024 and was part of the bankrupt Steward Health Care company, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Ayer, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A closed sign is posted on a glass door at a entrance to a building on grounds of the closed Carney Hospital, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A passer-by walks past an entrance to St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)