The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, per NBC News.
On Monday (September 30), Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said the Justice Department will review and evaluate the impact of the massacre, which left roughly 300 people dead in Tulsa’s once-prosperous Greenwood neighborhood nicknamed “Black Wall Street.”
The Tulsa race massacre started with accusations that a Black man assaulted a white woman. A white mob killed hundreds of people, who were mostly Black, and destroyed 35 blocks of houses and businesses. Experts say the destruction resulted in a loss of generational wealth for Black families in Tulsa.
The DOJ’s review of the massacre is being conducted under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the agency to investigate deadly civil rights crimes that occurred on or before Dec. 31, 1979.
During the investigation, Clarke said the DOJ will examine documents, witness accounts, past research, and more.
“We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state,” Clarke said. “Although a commission, historians, lawyers, and others have conducted prior examinations of the Tulsa Massacre, we, the Justice Department, never have.”
The Justice Department is aiming the finish the review by the end of the year.
“When we have finished our federal review, we will issue a report analyzing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights law,” Clarke stated.
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