[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TULSA-GREENWOOD RACE RIOT CLAIMS ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION,
CIVIL RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 1995
__________
APRIL 24, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-19
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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34-924 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RIC KELLER, Florida
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DARRELL ISSA, California
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia STEVE KING, Iowa
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TOM FEENEY, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chairman
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida MIKE PENCE, Indiana
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota DARRELL ISSA, California
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan STEVE KING, Iowa
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
David Lachmann, Chief of Staff
Paul B. Taylor, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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APRIL 24, 2007
TEXT OF BILL
Page
H.R. 1995, the ``Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot Claims Accountability
Act of 2007''.................................................. 2
OPENING STATEMENT
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties................ 7
The Honorable Trent Franks, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties................ 7
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil
Rights, and Civil Liberties.................................... 8
WITNESSES
Mr. Alfred L. Brophy, Ph.D., Professor of Law, University of
Alabama School of Law
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Mr. John Hope Franklin, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology (Retired),
Fordham University
Oral Testimony................................................. 24
Prepared Statement............................................. 26
Ms. Olivia Hooker, Ph.D., James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of
History, Duke University School of Law
Oral Testimony................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
Mr. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Director, Charles Hamilton Houston
Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School
Oral Testimony................................................. 33
Prepared Statement............................................. 35
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Member,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties...................................................... 10
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record........................ 67
TULSA-GREENWOOD RACE RIOT CLAIMS ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007
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TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:12 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jerrold
Nadler (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Nadler, Wasserman Schultz,
Ellison, Conyers, Scott, Watt, Cohen, Jackson Lee, Waters,
Franks, Pence, and Issa.
Staff present: Keenan Keller, Majority Counsel; David
Lachmann, Majority Staff Director; Paul Taylor, Minority
Counsel; and Susana Gutierrez, Professional Staff Member.
Mr. Nadler. Good morning. This hearing of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties will
come to order.
I am pleased to welcome you today to this hearing of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties on the subject of the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot
Accountability Act of 2007, which was introduced yesterday by
Chairman Conyers.
[The bill, H.R. 1995, follows:]
Mr. Nadler. The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes for
an opening statement.
Today the Subcommittee meets to examine an old injustice
for which our nation has failed to find a remedy. In 1921, in
less than 1 day, a 42-square block area of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the
Greenwood neighborhood, was attacked by a White mob and burned
to the ground. Approximately 300 of its residents were murdered
by the mob. What had been a thriving community was obliterated.
A commission established by the state of Oklahoma issued a
report in February of 2001, 6 years ago, detailing for the
first time the extent of the city and State government's
involvement in the riot and in the cover-up that followed and
the total lack of remedy available in the courts at that time.
A civil rights suit based on these newly disclosed facts
seeking compensation for the damages that occurred as a direct
result of the government's involvement was dismissed by a
divided 10th Circuit on the grounds that the suit was time-
barred.
No one was ever convicted for this outrage. Racist courts
were closed to the more than 100 lawsuits filed by Greenwood
residents and property owners against insurance companies
seeking payment on their policies. According to the commission,
local officials attempted to block the rebuilding of the
Greenwood community by amending the Tulsa building code.
It is painful to realize that what can only be described as
ethnic cleansing took place in our nation and that it has been
virtually wiped from the history books. Thanks to the work of
the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission, we have another chance to
confront the past.
Chairman Conyers introduced legislation yesterday to
address this longstanding injustice. And I want to thank him
for his efforts to bring this terrible history to the public's
attention and for his hard work in seeking to do a measure of
justice.
Nearly 90 years have passed since the Greenwood community
was destroyed with the connivance of local officials. No one
has been called to account for it. Very few of the survivors
remain. We cannot undo the past, but we can seek to make amends
to take responsibility on behalf of this nation for what
happened and to do what we can for the survivors.
For too many, justice delayed has been justice denied. This
is a matter that can no longer wait. And the least we can do is
to open our courts at this late date to them.
We have a panel of very distinguished witnesses today,
including one witness who will provide a very special
perspective on the events of 1921.
I look forward to hearing from all of you. And I want to
welcome you to the Subcommittee.
The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, is recognized for 5
minutes for his opening statement.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank the panelists for being here today. And I am
looking forward to their testimony as well.
Mr. Chairman, in ``Federalist 51'', James Madison wrote,
``It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the
society against the oppression of its rulers, but also to guard
one part of the society against the injustice of the other
part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights
of the minority will be insecure.''
Both of these issues are clearly illustrated here today. In
Tulsa there was both a failure of law enforcement to protect an
innocent minority and worse, an oppressive, unconstitutional
disarming and then slaughtering of an innocent population that
acted to protect its children and neighborhoods.
People suffered and died, Mr. Chairman. And this was an
inexcusable outrage and disgrace. The Tulsa Race Riots cuts
against everything that America stands for, namely, a
fundamental belief that all of the people are created equal and
endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, those
of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, most of the individuals who
suffered in the Tulsa tragedy are no longer with us and did not
live to witness their day in court, which the victims received
more than a half a century after the fact. The courts found
that the victims of the riot were terribly wronged. And finally
the story of Greenwood is known.
Though the courts have given closure in the public domain
and recognition for the indignities suffered, the Federal
courts have had to uniformly and unanimously dismiss the claims
because they were time-barred. The plaintiffs had opportunity
to bring claims against the State since at least the 1960's but
chose not to do so. Then in 2003, O.J. Simpson lawyer, Johnnie
Cochran, brought claims for money damages in the case of
Alexander v. Oklahoma.
This case was resolved in 2005 by a unanimous 10th Circuit
Court ruling finding that the claims were indeed time-barred.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the case because the facts
and the law are clear and the case is beyond the statute of
limitations.
It is important at this juncture to point out that the
rights under our Constitution belong to individuals and not to
groups. And nearly all the individuals who suffered in June
1921 are no longer alive. Nor are those who inflicted such
injustice.
Mr. Chairman, it seems that we are never quite so eloquent
as we are when we decry the crimes of a past generation. And we
are never so blind as when we ignore the injustice of the day
in our own time. It is a tragedy that occurs when innocent
human beings, children of God, are diminished as persons. It is
a tragedy repeated time and again in the history of the human
family.
The greatest act of contrition we could ever offer to all
of the victims of those tragedies is to instill anew in our own
hearts once and for all a conviction that regardless of what
other forces of expedience might exist, we as a society must
resolve to treat every human being, Black or White, young or
old, born or unborn, rich or poor, perfect or imperfect, weak
or strong as the children of God that they are. May that be our
greatest commitment at this hour as we remember the tragedy of
the Tulsa riots.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I look forward to the
testimony.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Chairman of the
full Committee, the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Nadler.
And to Trent Franks of Arizona, the Ranking Member, I
appreciate these opening statements because, to me, this is
another piece of American history that is so important, that we
come here today to remedy something that happened in 1921.
I notice sitting in the Judiciary Committee hearing room
Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman of Chicago, who has worked not only
on reparations but on this matter, on the issues with the Black
farmers and for justice in many ways all across the country. I
am delighted that she and all of these survivors are here. And
of course, our more regular witness, Charles Ogletree of
Harvard Law School is again with us. We welcome his presence.
Now, this is American history at its finest hour. What we
are looking at are the reasons that sometimes the statute of
limitations can be told. In the Japanese internment case that
came before the Congress, in the Pigford Black farmers case
that we tolled a statute of limitations. We mentioned Johnny
Cochran, one of our legendary members of the bar here.
And so, we come here with the full understanding in the
Judiciary Committee that it is within the courts' discretion to
tow the statute of limitations based on common law principle
and its balance test based on fairness and the need for
finality. Some of the key equitable principles present here is
not only was there evidence destroyed and that the city
deliberately hid the evidence, but there is more than a
suggestion that law enforcement operatives, including National
Guard, participated in the riot itself.
And then to have Dr. John Hope Franklin, whose father was
an attorney in Tulsa, the busy community known as the ``Negro
Wall Street,'' brings us all together in this room on this day
to try to bring some finality to such an important issue.
The case of the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot is worthy of
congressional attention because substantial evidence suggests
that governmental officials deputized and armed some of the mob
and that the National Guard itself joined in the destruction.
The report commissioned by the Oklahoma State Legislature in
1997 brought new evidence forward.
And as a matter of fact, we have the State representative
from Oklahoma who is present with us today sitting in the front
row. And we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for
the great work that you did in bringing this forward.
And so, with this new evidence crucial for the formulation
of a substantial case, but its timeliness raised issues at law
and resulted in a dismissal on statute of limitations ground in
dismissing the survivors' claim. However, the court found that
the extraordinary circumstances might support extending the
statute of limitations, but that Congress did not establish
rules applicable to the case it barred.
So with this legislation, we have the opportunity to
provide closure for a group of claimants, all over 90 years old
and some of them here today, and the ability to close the book
on a tragic chapter in our history. So, I am very proud to join
all of the Members of this Committee for the hearing that will
now take place.
Thank you very much, Chairman Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
In the interest of proceeding to our witnesses and mindful
of our busy schedules, I would ask that other Members submit
their statements for the record. Without objection, all Members
will have 5 legislative days to submit opening statements for
inclusion in the record.
Without objection, the Chair will be authorized to declare
a recess of the hearing if necessary.
As we ask questions of our witnesses, the Chair will
recognize Members in the order of their seniority on the
Subcommittee, alternating between majority and minority
Members, providing that the Member is present when his or her
turn arrives. Members who are not present when their turn
begins will be recognized after the other Members have had the
opportunity to ask their questions. The Chair reserves the
right to accommodate a Member who is unavoidably late or who is
only able to be with us for a short time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cohen follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Member, Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
Today's hearing addresses yet another painful episode in our
Nation's long-tortured history of race relations. The Greenwood Race
Riot of 1921 represents a particular low point in that history. During
the riot, a white mob burned one of the most prominent and thriving
African-American communities in the country to the ground, aided and
abetted by the very government officials who were supposed to be
protecting the innocent residents and property owners of that
community. Looking to the courts for relief, Greenwood's residents were
denied justice--in the 1920's because of rank racial prejudice and in
the 2000's because of a technical legal hurdle. The legislation that we
discuss today--the ``Tulsa-Greenwood Riot Accountability Act of
2007''--provides at least the fair opportunity for the riot's victims
to obtain justice from the federal courts in light of new evidence that
strongly suggests the culpability of government officials with respect
to the riot. After eight and half decades in the shadows, the victims
of the Greenwood Race Riot are entitled to their day in court.
Mr. Nadler. I would now like to welcome our distinguished
panel of witnesses.
Professor Alfred Brophy teaches at the University of
Alabama School of Law. He has written extensively on race and
property law in colonial, antebellum and early 20th century
America. He served as a clerk to Judge John Butzner of the U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and has taught at
Boston College Law School, Indiana University, the University
of Hawaii and Vanderbilt University. He received his A.B. from
the University of Pennsylvania, his Ph.D. from Harvard and his
J.D. from Columbia University.
John Hope Franklin is the James B. Duke Professor Meritus
of History and was for 7 years a professor of Legal History in
the Law School of Duke University. He is a native of Oklahoma
and a graduate of Fisk University. He received his Ph.D. in
history from Harvard. He is one of this nation's most
distinguished historians of the African-American experience in
the United States. I would go on to list his many acclaimed
publications, awards, teaching posts and honorary degrees, but
that would leave little time for our hearing.
The Chair would note with satisfaction that, among his many
achievements, Professor Franklin chaired the history department
at Brooklyn College. And Brooklyn is part of my constituency.
Most relevant for the Subcommittee, I must note that Professor
Franklin's father was born in the Indian territory, grew up in
Oklahoma and lived through the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921. He,
himself, moved to Tulsa when he was 10 years old, just 4 years
after the Tulsa riot, and witnessed firsthand the impact the
riot had on Tulsa.
Dr. Olivia Hooker is a survivor the Tulsa Race Riot of
1921. She is here today as a witness to history. And we are
both grateful and privileged that she has come all this way to
describe for Congress exactly what happened.
She was the first African-American woman to enlist and go
on active duty in the Coast Guard in World War II. She is a
graduate of Ohio State University. She has an M.A. from
Columbia Teachers College and a Ph.D. from the University of
Rochester. She taught at the graduate school of arts and
sciences at Fordham University before retiring in 1985.
Our final witness is no stranger to this Committee.
Professor Charles Ogletree is the Jesse Climenko Professor of
Law at Harvard and is the executive director of the Charles
Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. Professor
Ogletree earned his B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University and
holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
On behalf of the Subcommittee, I want to extend a warm
welcome to all of you.
Without objection, your written statements will be made
part of the record in its entirety. I would ask each witness to
summarize your testimony in 5 minutes or less. To help you stay
within that time, there is a timing light at your table. When 1
minute remains, the light will switch from green to yellow, and
then to red when the 5 minutes are up.
I will begin by asking Professor Brophy----
Mr. Ogletree. Chairman, before he speaks, can I have the
privilege to introduce the survivors who are here who will not
be testifying, if I could?
Mr. Nadler. By all means. By all means.
Mr. Ogletree. Thank you very much. I am Charles Ogletree,
the lead counsel for the survivors.
And we have here today Mrs. Edie Fay Gates, who has
chronicled the history of the survivors--if you would stand up,
Mrs. Gates--in several books and is the one who helped keep
this alive. And she was also on the Tulsa Race Riot Commission.
We have Representative Donald Ross, who helped this
legislation, was on that commission as well, who has come in
from Oklahoma and has been an important mainstay.
We have Dr. Otis Clarke, who is 104 years old, the oldest
survivor here. He was 18 years old during the riot in 1921. He
is here with his daughter and granddaughter, Gwen and Starr
Williams. And he is our oldest surviving witness.
We have Mr. Wess Young, a 91-year-old survival from Tulsa
and his wife, Catherine Young, from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
We have Agnieszka Fryszman, one of the lawyers who has been
working with the survivors, from the Cohen Milstein firm here
in Washington, D.C.
We have Mr. Demarial Solomon Simmons, who is a young man
from Tulsa whose grandparents were in Tulsa. And we would like
to submit his testimony for the record.
[The information referred to was not received by the
Subcommittee prior to the printing of this hearing.]
Mr. Ogletree. We have Representative Jamar Shomate, who
represents the district where many of these residents live now
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
We have Suzette M. Malveaux, who is with the Cohen Milstein
firm and helped us draft the original complaint. She is a
professor here at Catholic University.
And we also have Alderman Dorothy Tillman from Chicago, who
has been down to Tulsa, who has been with the survivors here.
And we have Reverend Granger Browning, who hosted the
survivors here this past weekend at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort
Washington, Maryland, along with Jonathan Newton, one of my
former students and also a member of AME church.
And I would also want to acknowledge the other lawyers:
Dennis Sweet; Michele Roberts; Johnny Cochran, who you
mentioned; Eric Miller; Raul Sanders; Leslie Mansfield; Jim
Goodwin; and a few others; Reggie Turner, a classmate of mine
who is documenting this history in a film called, ``Before They
Die.''
Thank you.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Professor.
The Chair certainly wants to welcome the survivors and the
chroniclers and all those who have worked on behalf of the
survivors and to bring this injustice to light and to history
and to judicial resolution. And I express my appreciation for
all your efforts and for your being here today.
And I thank you, Professor, for bringing this to our
attention and for introducing them. And thank you all for that.
And, Professor Brophy, you may now proceed with your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF ALFRED L. BROPHY, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF LAW,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA SCHOOL OF LAW
Mr. Brophy. Thank you, Representative Nadler,
Representative Conyers, Ranking Member Franks, and Members of
the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties. It is my pleasure and honor to speak on behalf of
this legislation to repair the tragedy of the Tulsa riots of
1921.
I am Al Brophy, professor of law at the University of
Alabama and author of, among other works, ``Reconstructing the
Dreamland: The Tulsa Riots of 1921.''
I think the most poignant photograph of the riot is this
picture entitled, ``Running the Negro out of Tulsa.'' It is a
postcard made up after the riot to commemorate the riot. And it
captures, I think, the essence of it. It was the result of race
hatred and a move to drive out Tulsa's African-American
population. It was about teaching Greenwood residents their
place at the same time they were driven from their homes.
I would like to emphasize several key aspects of the riot.
First, the city is culpable. When the riot began, the
police chief issued hundreds of commissions to men at the
courthouse. They were instructed to get a gun and get a Black
person or thereabouts. And they worked in conjunction with
police officers and the local units of the National Guard to
disarm every Black person in Tulsa and take them to what
newspapers called concentration camps around the city. What
followed then was those deputies, sometimes working in
conjunction with police officers to loot and burn Greenwood.
In the aftermath of the riot, Tulsa made concerted efforts
to erase the city's culpability. An all-White grand jury
investigated the riot. And their conclusion was told in the
headline of the Tulsa World: ``Grand Jury Blames Negroes for
Inciting Race Rioting. Whites Clearly Exonerated.'' Or, as the
Oklahoma City Black Dispatch commented, ``There is a whitewash
brush, and a big one, in operation in Tulsa.''
Second, though some people knew and bravely sought to
obtain some form of redress through the courts, race riot
victims had no realistic shot at justice. For those riot
victims, people who lived through the horror and brutality of
the riot, Jim Crow has not yet ended.
For everyone else, we may have said that Jim Crow ended in
the 1960's when this Congress passed its comprehensive civil
rights statutes. For those riot victims who were taught at an
early age the assertion of legal rights leads to their
destruction, I think it has not yet ended.
And though we had something like 100 lawsuits filed at the
time, they went nowhere. Things were going from worse for riot
victims.
In 1923, the governor of Oklahoma declared martial law
throughout the State citing among other reasons the pervasive
influence of the Klan in the Tulsa courts. As late as the
1970's when someone is established as General Ed Wheeler of the
Oklahoma National Guard, a White man, studied the riot, he was
threatened with violence.
Third, it was through the Oklahoma legislature's Tulsa Riot
Commission and the moral and financial support given to it by
the legislature that we were finally able to piece together a
complete picture of the riot. Though we knew pieces of this
before, it was only through that comprehensive work
representing the work of dozens of scholars and community
members working over years that we were able to piece this
together.
When looking at photographs like this and the next one
showing scenes of utter destruction for as far as the eye can
see, one might ask how has the story been buried for so long.
And I think the answer turns on an unholy combination of
factors: the diligent efforts of Tulsa authorities and other
prominent Tulsans to scuttle the story, to tell the world that
Greenwood residents were to blame for the riot, to hide the
culpability of the police department and the local units of the
National Guard, and to threaten with prosecution those brave
Greenwood leaders who might attempt to obtain justice.
It was a culture of suppression in which, to borrow a
phrase from Ralph Ellison's novel, ``Juneteenth,'' Blacks were
counted but not heard. And it has only been relatively recently
as people who had culpability for the crimes such as murder
have died and evidence has come to light that we have been able
to put together the complete picture of the riot.
I will in the interest of time just emphasize that the city
and State are culpable. The tragedy is concentrated in time and
place. This isn't a claim for general societal reparations. And
promises were made at the time to repair the community.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brophy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alfred L. Brophy
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much, Professor.
We will now hear from Professor Franklin, who is recognized
for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
(RETIRED), FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be as brief
as I can about----
Mr. Nadler. Could you put on your microphone, please?
Mr. Franklin. It is on, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Nadler. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Franklin. I will be as brief as I can about a matter
that means so much to so many people.
My father was a lifelong resident of Oklahoma. We lived in
a small village south of Tulsa for some years. I was born
there.
But in early 1921, my father went to Tulsa to open a law
office. We were to join him at the end of the school term, as
my mother was a teacher and I was a student. But after we had
packed and were waiting for him to arrive to escort us to
Tulsa, we waited, and we waited for more than a day.
On the second day of waiting, my mother learned through the
Muskogee Daily Phoenix that there had been a riot in Tulsa and
that there were many casualties. For some days she did not know
whether my father was living or dead. She finally got a note
from him saying that he was unharmed but that he had been
detained in the Convention Hall for several days.
He said that he could not bring us to Tulsa. The whole town
where we would live had been devastated by fires and by murders
and by all kinds of activities that prevented a normal
procedure in that part of the community.
And so, we had to wait. We waited for 4 years before we
were able to move to Tulsa. And it was at that time that I
discovered that Tulsa was still on the move so far as
reconstruction was concerned, that the Black part of town was
still just in the midst of trying to rebuild.
And as a matter of fact, when I came there, I was amazed to
see houses still partly rebuilt, churches where only the
basement had been reconstructed. It was a strange sort of
appearance.
Later, when I learned a little more and when I had learned
something about architecture, I said that this town, this Black
part of town is undergoing what might be called a post-riot
building renaissance because the structures were just half-
finished. And I did not know--I did not think they would ever
be completely finished.
But they were in due course. But I noticed also that there
was a culture of silence that had settled down over the city.
Nothing was discussed that had any connection with the riot.
Indeed, children in the White part of town grew up not even
knowing that there had been a riot.
The mayor of Tulsa, the first woman mayor of Tulsa, Susan
Savage, told me that she was a grown woman, although she had
lived in Tulsa, born there after the riot, that she was a grown
woman before she even knew that there had been a riot. A sort
of culture of silence had settled down. And no one spoke of it,
except in the Black part of town where they spoke of it in
hushed tones and did not want to convey the impression that
they had been defeated and almost destroyed by the action that
was taken.
It was in those years that my father brought suit against
the city, against the State, against the insurance companies
and anyone else who might have been connected with the riot in
any way. I used to say that he lost all of those suits, except
one which was against the city of Tulsa, which had passed an
ordinance calling for no construction in the city that was not
fireproof.
Well, there were no resources for the Black community to
build fireproof constructions. And so, my father commanded them
to build, build with anything they had, orange crates and what
not.
And so, his clients were arrested and brought to trial for
violation of the ordinance. And it was there that he was able
to argue for them and to appeal and finally--and the State
supreme court--the court handed down the decision that the
ordinance had been passed as an effort to prevent any kind of
action, to prevent even any discussion of the riot. And so, he
proceeded to carry on in this fashion for many years.
And I want to say in conclusion that there were many of us
like my schoolmate here to my left and others who survived. But
most of our schoolmates have not survived. And they suffered
during the remainder of their lives from the trauma of the
experiences of 1921. And I can say that had I arrived on
schedule as I should have arrived on schedule that I might not
be here, either, at this time.
But I thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman. And I
could go on for many, many hours, but I won't. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Franklin follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Hope Franklin
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Professor.
Professor Hooker?
TESTIMONY OF OLIVIA HOOKER, Ph.D., JAMES B. DUKE PROFESSOR
EMERITUS OF HISTORY, DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Ms. Hooker. Thank you, Representative Conyers and
Committee, for allowing us to unburden ourselves after 86 years
of suffering.
As a small girl of 6 years, my two parents who had come to
Oklahoma to teach in the Indian nations, my mother from Texas
and my father from Mississippi. And when Oklahoma became a
State, then it was possible for my father to go into business.
But then picture with me the trauma of a young 6-year-old
girl hearing things hitting the house, ``bang, bang, bang,
bang'' like that, and thinking it was hail until my mother took
me to the window and let me peer through the blinds and said,
``That thing up there on the stand with the American flag on
top of it is a machine gun. And those are bullets hitting the
house. And that means your country is shooting at you.''
This was a totally amazing thought to a child who was
totally idealistic. I had never met any kind of discrimination
because the salesmen who came to sell my father things always
acted as if the children were so important in order to sell
their goods. So I didn't know about hatred. And this was
devastating to me to think of my country shooting at me.
As the publicity was suppressed, the nation did not know
about what happened in Tulsa except through the Black press:
Roscoe Dungee in Oklahoma City and Mr. Smitherman in Tulsa, who
did publish it. But the local presses of many cities did not.
It so happened my dad went down to the rubble. There was
nothing but bricks left of the store, but he noticed his safe
was still there. And he thought, ``Well, I will try to open
it,'' thinking it would be empty. But, praise the Lord, it was
not empty.
He didn't have money, but he had some war bonds. And he was
able then, with a wise secretary, Mr. Greg, who had been
trained in a graduate school in Germany--Archie Greg and my
father went on a speaking tour to the Black churches of the
United States on the East Coast mostly.
They went to Washington to the AME Zion Church and to
Petersburg and Lynchburg and Richmond, places like that, where
the Black people in those towns sent missionary barrels of
shoes and useful clothing. And those things were distributed
out of the undestroyed part of Booker Washington High School.
The Red Cross entered the field a little later because the
local Red Cross had said they would not give people anything
unless those people came and washed their clothes and took care
of their children because they were desolate for help at home.
Finally, the National Red Cross sent Maurice Willows, and
things got better so far as issuing of materials.
But the damage that was done was not only the material
things. A house destroyed, the entire neighborhood destroyed,
the businesses destroyed, all the services destroyed, our
school bombed on the day that we should have been getting our
report cards to move up to the next class so that the children
of Tulsa were very devastated.
The machine gun captain decided that he had to make my
mother leave the house as she was pouring water on the house to
try to keep it from burning. So he sent somebody down and said,
``Tell that woman to get out of there with those children and
go to a place of safety.'' My mother was trained in oratory at
Tuskegee.
And she said, ``I cannot go until I talk to these people
who brought their children to watch this catastrophe.'' And my
mother started to speak to them to say it would be visited upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation at which
point the people said, ``Stop that woman. She is scaring our
children.''
And a man came over and said to her, ``When the mob gets
out of your house, I will go down and put out the fire if I
can.'' And there was evidence at our house that he did do that.
But, of course, most things were lost.
I see I am over time. And I thank you again for letting me
speak.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hooker follows:]
Prepared Statement of Oliva J. Hooker
My name is Dr. Olivia J. Hooker, and I currently reside in the
State of New York. I was born on February 12, 1915, and I am a survivor
of what is known as the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, but what was really a
massacre of the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, then called the
``Black Wall Street.''
My parents Samuel and Anita Hooker came to Tulsa from Holmes County
Mississippi. At the time of the Riot, I lived on Independence Street in
the Greenwood District of Tulsa with my parents and four siblings.
At the time of the riot, my parents owned a home on Independence
Street valued at $10,000 and a clothing store at 123 North Greenwood
Avenue that was one of the most prominent stores in Greenwood. My home
was severely damaged but not destroyed in the riot, however, the mob
completely destroyed my parents' business, which was described as ``a
total loss.''
Furnishings valued at $3000 were either stolen or deliberately
smashed or destroyed. Jewelry valued at $1000 furs valued at $1000 and
silver valued at $500 were also stolen. The estimated total loss of
goods displayed at the store was $100,000. That makes a total loss of
$104,000 to our parents during that riot.
My parents were distraught over the loss of the many beautiful
things they had purchased with their hard-earned money. The mobs hacked
up our furniture with axes and set fire to my grandmother's bed and
sewing machine. I still remember the sound of gunfire raining down on
my home and that the mob burned all my doll's clothes. After the riot,
my mother saved all the artillery shells that mobsters had put in all
of our dresser drawers.
As a child, I had believed every word of the Constitution, but
after the riots happened, I realized that the Constitution did not
include me.
After the Tulsa violence, my mother took our family to Topeka,
Kansas, while my father remained in Tulsa to try to restore his bombed
out business. My father filed a lawsuit against the insurance company
for the value of the destroyed property, but a judge threw the case out
in 1926 or 1927.
Later, we moved to Columbus, Ohio, where my sisters and I graduated
from Ohio State University. After teaching third grade for seven years,
I enlisted in the United States Coast Guard, becoming the first African
American woman to enlist and go on active duty in the Coast Guard, then
a part of the U.S. Navy during World War II. I earned an M.A. from
Columbia University Teachers College on the GI Bill, and a Ph.d Degree
at the University of Rochester where I was one of two black female
students. I taught in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at
Fordham University, retiring as Associate Professor in 1985.
We did go on with our lives after the riot but the memories of what
happened to us then will never go away. The injustices we suffered the
two days of the riot and the injustices we suffered after the riot when
insurance companies failed to pay riot victims for their losses and
when court officials summarily threw out our riot victims cases are a
blot on Tulsa's image that have not been erased to today.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Professor Hooker.
Professor Ogletree?
TESTIMONY OF CHARLES J. OGLETREE, JR., DIRECTOR, CHARLES
HAMILTON HOUSTON INSTITUTE FOR RACE AND JUSTICE, HARVARD LAW
SCHOOL
Mr. Ogletree. Thank you, Chairman Nadler, and thank you,
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee John Conyers, and also the
minority leader, Congressman Franks, for this hearing.
These are challenging times for all of us. I represented
these clients when I first met them in 2002 and, with the
support of a volunteer group of lawyers, have represented them
ever since.
When we filed this lawsuit on their behalf on February 28,
2003, there were 150 living survivors. Since then, 70 have died
in the last 3 years. They are dying every day.
And one of the amazing things is that there is a edifice
over the Florida Supreme Court. The court is where the injured
flock for justice. And that is where we are today.
This report, thanks to Don Ross and Al Brophy and people
like Edie Fay Gates, this documents Oklahoma's history. It is
here, every single word, every single verse, every single
crime, every single incident. And it took 80 years to unbury an
American nightmare. But they did it. They did it.
We have been in court--and if you read Judge Ellison's
opinion of the District Court, if you read the 10th Circuit's
opinion, no court has ever said that these clients are barred
by a 2-year statute of limitations, which is normally the law.
They said that the criminal justice system, the legal system in
Tulsa, was not available to people of African descent at that
time. And indeed, Judge Ellison said they couldn't have filed
suits in the 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's or 1960's because
the courts were just not open.
And then in an amazing feat of creative imagination, he
said, ``Perhaps they should have filed in the 1960's.'' We went
to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 10th Circuit said,
``We don't know when you should have filed this lawsuit, but
sometime before today.''
``Sometime before today.'' What kind of justice is that
when our courts are--if they had said, ``You should have been
in court by 1923; it is over.'' They didn't say that because
they knew the justice system did not work.
And what makes this so important is that these aren't
individuals who are asking for something that they didn't earn.
When you look at these photographs, the Greenland Theater was a
treasure in Oklahoma and Tulsa. When you look at the J.B.
Stratford Hotel, Blacks couldn't stay any other place when they
came to Oklahoma to perform. They stayed there. They had to
live in segregation. That was destroyed. When you look at the
businesses and the homes and the idea that no one has ever been
held responsible criminally or civilly for destroying a 42-
block Black community. No one has ever been held responsible.
And this role is important because if we look at our own
history, when I think of that Florida phrase, I think of this
Committee. This is where the people flock for justice. When
citizens saw their families exterminated in the holocaust, they
couldn't go to court. They tried to explain their history, but
there was no one there to speak for them.
When American citizens in the Second World War were placed
in interment camps in the Western part of the United States and
stayed there, it took a Republican Senator Bob Dole and a
Democrat Senator Daniel Inouye to pass the 1988 Civil Rights
Act decades after the incident to give them some reparations.
When Black farmers throughout America found that they
couldn't go to Virginia and Michigan and all over the country,
North Carolina to get their rights, Congress stepped in and
said, ``They come here, and we will address their needs.''
Every single time the courts have said no, someone with moral
authority has spoken up to make sure that these injustices are
addressed.
And this isn't, as Congressman Nadler said, it is not a
riot. It really is ethnic cleansing. If we go back to Oklahoma
City, a tragedy that all of us suffered from on April 19, 1995,
there are monuments. The president of the United States was
there. Every victim has been compensated. Every person
responsible has been punished. We will never forget April 19,
1995, and nor should we.
When we go to September 11, 2001, thousands of people lost
their lives, friends of mine, personal friends. And we have
compensated those victims. We have tried to bring those
responsible to justice.
And here we have document evidence record that hear the
people. Otis Clark, Wess Young, Dr. Olivia Hooker, John Hope
Franklin--they have never, ever, ever had their day in court.
We simply ask you, Chairman Nadler and this Committee, to make
sure that they get justice before they die.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ogletree follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
ATTACHMENT
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Professor.
The Chair will now recognize himself for 5 minutes.
Professor Ogletree and Professor Brophy, the facts having
been well-established, the real question, and, in fact, I think
the only question here is the question of the statute of
limitations.
Now, we don't have a Federal statute of limitations. The
courts have borrowed States' statutes of limitations. The
courts have stated that equitable principles should be used for
determining to what extent we will borrow the States' statutes
of limitations.
Professor, could you place for us the bill before us would
reopen for us in 5 years, very much like a toxic tort statute?
Mr. Ogletree. Right.
Mr. Nadler. Could you place that for us in the context of
what we have previously done or how courts have ruled reopening
statutes of limitations in light of the fact that the courts
were not open for so many years? And also elaborate what was
significant about the 1960's in one of the court decisions.
Mr. Ogletree. Well, thank you. Let me take the second
question with Judge Ellison.
Judge Ellison, like the 10th Circuit, they both understood
the magnitude of the travesty that happened at Oklahoma City.
And they knew that, as one of the slides show, in the 1920's
mayors, public officials, a lot of the elected officials were
associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
And Judge Ellison said in unequivocal terms the courts were
not open. They were not available at all. But his sense was at
some point America had a civil rights movement. But as John
Hope Franklin has told you, people who were born in 1990 had no
idea that this happened in 1921. That is the issue.
There was no record of this until 2001. And that is what
makes it so important. And that is why we filed the lawsuit. We
filed the lawsuit within 2 years of having determined that this
was necessary.
The 10th Circuit said an extraordinary thing for a court to
say. They didn't say that the plaintiffs had no claim to bring
the lawsuit. They said two important things. One, a book was
written in 1982, a book about the Tulsa Race Riots. Perhaps the
survivors, Dr. Olivia Hooker, perhaps Otis Clark, perhaps Wess
Young should have read this book in 1982 and realized what
happened and filed a lawsuit. The author of that very book
testified and said, ``You know what? What I wrote in 1982
didn't even address the scope of what happened. I didn't find
out until I, Scott Ellsworth, became a witness.''
Mr. Nadler. So in other words, the court was looking or
thought it had found some hook----
Mr. Ogletree. Something, some point----
Mr. Nadler. Some hook, the book, the civil rights laws of
the 1960's, on which it said, after that, people should have
known and should have--and the statute should have started----
Mr. Ogletree. Indeed. What they were really saying is that,
``We can't solve this because we are unable to.'' The report
tells us this evidence was not disclosed. And this is a
Committee appointed for the State of Oklahoma. And it gives
you, Congress, a chance to look at this and give reasonable
time.
My only concern is time because clients died last week.
They are dying every week. Even with this 5-year statute of
limitations, my hope and expectation is that it can be done
sooner. Otis Clark is 104 years old. He has forgotten more than
he has remembered.
Mr. Nadler. Obviously we want to do it as quickly as
possible.
Professor, would you comment? Professor Brophy?
Mr. Brophy. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much.
As you know, the statute of limitations is an artificial
bar to something that would otherwise be a valid lawsuit. And
along those lines, I would like to introduce my colleague,
Suzette Malveaux's terrific article in the George Washington
Law Review specifically addressing statute of limitations for
old civil rights cases.
In terms of precedent, it strikes me as though one of the
key precedents here is what you did for Black farmers in the
Department of Agriculture case where you tolled the statute of
limitations.
When you are thinking of things that go back further even
than the Tulsa Race Riot, I might refer you to the California
legislation restarting the statute of limitations for victims
of the Armenian genocide where folks who had not had--whose
relatives died in that tragedy and then never received
compensation from insurance companies, the State of California
restarted the statute of limitations.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much.
And my last question is really--Professor Brophy, again.
Given the fact that this is grounded in 1983, among other
things, that this is State involvement, that this is
involvement by the Federal Government as well as the State and
local governments.
Does that affect, in your judgment, the equities of tolling
the statute?
Mr. Brophy. I believe it does. And I think it affects it,
makes it easier to restart the statute of limitations, in that
this was done by the State and local governments. And it
strikes me as though those folks have less of a claim to a
statute of limitations.
We have statute of limitations to give artificial repose to
individuals. And I think the claims are much less strong in the
case of a government than private entities.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much.
The Chairman's time is expired. I will now recognize the
distinguished Mr. Franks for 5 minutes.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank the panel for your very moving
testimony.
As I said in my opening statement, I believe that the
greatest challenge that we have in humanity is somehow
recognizing each other in a way that carries with it the human
dignity that is imparted to every person by God Almighty. I am
convinced that that remains our greatest challenge even today.
There are examples throughout history that are replete with
these kinds of tragedies. You know, in Nazi Germany we saw 6
million Jews murdered along with people of other groups as well
that simply were looked down as inferior by this Nazi war
machine. We saw in the whole worldwide tragedy of human slavery
how something continued for thousands of years and that somehow
we as human beings were not able to recognize what a tragedy
all of that was.
And we see it, in my judgment, today with abortion on
demand. We don't recognize, I think, the loss of 50 million of
our own children.
And I believe that all of us have some kind of historical
reference in our own lives. And my own grandmother was a child
of a Cherokee and talked often about some of the things that
her mother had told her of the Trail of Tears.
And I think that the greatest way that we can honor the
victims and even to somehow repay the victims is to use their
tragedy to somehow better the human family now and in the
future.
And quite honestly, Mr. Chairman, it is a hard subject for
me because I am not sure that the bill that is considered here
is the best way to do it, because it seems to me that it
penalizes those who did not do this tragedy and ends up helping
those that weren't the victims of the tragedy.
And that is a great concern to me because I believe if you
apply the principles of this bill to all of the ones that I
just mentioned, I guess we would just get lost. And somehow as
a human family we have to come together and realize that at
least we can say no more. It doesn't have to continue like
this.
And so, I guess my question to you, Professor Ogletree,
first is, are there any other persons who are responsible for
the actual wrongs in Greenwood still alive today?
In other words, you know, according to my math, if they
were of maturity age at the time, they would have to be around
104 years old. I know that we have one 104-year-old victim here
today.
Are there any of those that were the perpetrators of this
tragedy alive, as far as you know?
Mr. Ogletree. No.
And the more direct answer to your question, Congressman
Franks, is that--two things.
First of all, there were murders in 1921. There is no
statute of limitation on murder, even though those responsible
are no longer with us. But secondly, there are claims of
descendants.
And this was State action. This was not just individuals.
These were sheriffs deputizing people, going into pawn shops,
gun shops, et cetera.
And the graphic tells you that even though--here is the
issue, the catch-22. In 1921, they couldn't go to the court.
They had to wait. Now that they have counsel, now that they
have the evidence that was buried, now we are being told it is
too late.
That is where Congress comes in. There is an equity and
justice point here. I am not trying to prosecute someone who
killed Otis Clark's relatives in 1921 or took Dr. Hooker's
property in 1921. But the reality is that there was State
action.
And we didn't prosecute anybody in 1988 with the Civil
Rights Act that was passed by Senator Dole and Senator Inouye.
They just said Congress has a higher moral duty to do
something.
We didn't prosecute anybody because Blacks were denied
their right to their farming subsidies. When you passed the
congressional subsidy for them, no one was punished. That was
not the issue.
The issue is, how do we correct a wrong before they die?
I mean, they are here today, and they have been here. And
my sense is that we can have a wonderful, I think, theoretical
argument about, you know, who to punish. But in some sense,
those who are the successors have some obligation.
I think it was high-minded of the State of Virginia to
express its regrets for slavery, as we heard from the State of
Maryland. They didn't hold anybody as slaves, but the current
generation said, ``It is on our watch.''
I thought it was important for President Bush to have the
Tuskegee airmen there, to apologize and salute them. It was
important for President Clinton to have the syphilis experiment
men there to apologize.
At some point, somebody has to say, ``I didn't do it, but
it happened on my watch, when I had the authority, the moral
authority to correct it.''
So we can get into that trap of, ``No one is there.'' But I
think we can say, ``Let's look back and solve it,'' in the
sense it helps all of us and doesn't punish anybody but, in a
sense, sets the record straight and, I think, achieves a
greater goal for all of us.
Mr. Franks. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. But I would just
like to express my agreement with the sentiments of Mr.
Ogletree, that it is right and appropriate for those of us in
later times to express regret for some of the tragedies that
occurred in the past.
And I think, again, the greatest way that we express that
regret is to make sure on behalf of those victims that such
tragedies are not repeated.
Mr. Nadler. Professor, before I go into the next, let me--
Professor Ogletree, is it not true that many of the descendants
in lawsuits that might be brought are the State government and
insurance companies, which are ongoing entities?
Mr. Ogletree. That is exactly right.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Now I will recognize the distinguished Chairman of the
Committee, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Nadler.
I hope that your discussion with Trent Franks has made it
perfectly clear that we are following a long tradition in terms
of tolling the statute of limitations. This is not new
information.
And I join Professor Brophy in asking unanimous consent
that this tremendous article written by Professor Suzette
Malveaux in the George Washington Law Review--which not only
discussed the statute of limitations as a policy analysis, but
applies it specifically to the Tulsa Riots of 1921 be submitted
for the record.
Let me now turn. The second question I am going to ask
after I have talked with Dr. John Hope Franklin is to Professor
Ogletree in, where do we go from here? Because it is not over.
Once we toll the statute of limitations--is only the very first
step in the beginning. I have the confidence to believe that
this Congress will act appropriately.
But before we come back to that, I wanted to ask Dr. John
Hope Franklin about, just looking back on this 1921 tragedy,
how was it created? How did it happen that so much hatred
exploded and so much violence took place?
And would Tulsa be much different today if this riot had
not occurred?
And are there other comparable race riots that you draw
analogy between the Tulsa riot, Dr. Franklin?
Mr. Franklin. Well, yes. One has to remember that this is a
period of extreme violence. It can hardly be called civilized,
the relationships of people from the beginning of the 20th
century right down to the time of the riot in Tulsa. There had
been riots in Washington and Chicago along with Texas, Rosewood
and many other places in the country.
I think what is also interesting to observe is--and I have
learned this from reading the journals, the newspapers and so
forth in connection with something else--that you get a very
remarkable degree of admission and contriteness on the part of
even the Tulsa community in the months following the riot. You
would have thought they would have come out and been pouring
all of their largess on the people who were the survivors,
except that after making these pious statements, nothing
happened. They didn't do anything about it.
They threw things out of court that might have pursued
justice in the long run. But what we need to remember is that
this comes on the heels of enormous, enormous racist sentiment
that is expressed even during World War I. It is to be
remembered that Black soldiers who were in the war were not
permitted to be a part of the United States Army in Europe.
They had to be attached to the French Army. And then having
been attached to the French Army, being treated somewhat
equally, then the United States doesn't want them back unless
they can go through some sort of period of retraining so they
can go back to their inferior status which they had occupied in
the United States.
So we have got a climate of hostility, of barbarism that is
widespread in the years from 1918--called the Red Summer of
1918 because there were so many riots--down through 1922 or
1923.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you so much for putting that in
perspective.
Let me ask Professor Ogletree, where else do we go from
here? Let us assume we get the limitations period tolled.
Mr. Ogletree. Well, I wish I had both been aware and able
to answer that question 25 years ago because I would say we go
back to Tulsa and we tell the stories. Thanks to the work of
Don Ross and Edie Fay Gates, we have captured some of the
testimony.
Edie Fay Gates has interviewed hundreds, hundreds of
African-Americans who lost property, family who lost lives,
businesses that were destroyed and have that record. But
virtually every person that she has interviewed from the early
times is now dead. And the numbers are staggeringly low.
So I also hope there is also not a false sense of security
that we toll the statute of limitations but we can't help Otis
Clark explain what happened to his home in 1921, you know, 87
years ago. Dr. Olivia Hooker documented all of her family's
losses with great detail. And we have that. But we have a
documentary on the survivors. And what is sad about it is that
we started interviewing people in 2004, 2003. And we have
dozens of survivors interviewed.
Eighty percent of the people who were interviewed to tell
their story are dead, 80 percent. And so, I am hoping we can
not only address this in terms of those who are living, but
also find ways through descendants to establish some of these
claims. And what we do know--we have the 42-block area. We know
where they lived. And we know what was lost.
Mr. Conyers. Yes, thank you, Dr. Franklin and Professor
Ogletree.
Mr. Ogletree. Thank you.
Mr. Nadler. The time of the gentleman is expired.
Mr. Pence is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
holding this hearing on this appalling moment in American
history.
And I want to thank this thoughtful panel and particularly
Professor Ogletree, with whom I had the opportunity to visit in
chambers with the Chairman last week.
Thank you for your role over many years, Professor
Franklin, yours in bringing to light this travesty, national
travesty of justice.
I am especially anxious to have the opportunity to meet
some of the vigorous survivors of this incident, who I know
still continue to--were on CapitOl Hill this week and may be
present today. And I would greet them as well.
Thank you for your example of persistence and determination
in the interest of justice. I commend you. And I am inspired by
that persistence.
Professor Ogletree, you and I had a chance to speak
privately a little bit ago, but I thought it would be helpful
to have you unpack some of these thoughts.
And, Professor Franklin, the same.
I find myself, as a student of American history, fascinated
by what I like to refer to as progress interrupted in Black
America.
And it seems like what happened in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
and as, Professor Franklin, you stated, happened elsewhere in
the country, while we feel a sense of moral outrage because it
was an incident motivated by and organized around racial
enmity, but it seems to me that, as I said to you last week,
Professor, it feels a bit more like envy than racism.
Madam Walker of Indianapolis fame is a great example of an
entrepreneurial class in Black America that had within a single
generation not only wrestled free from the shackles of slavery,
but whose economic wealth was growing at a pace that
significantly outpaced the broader population, according to
most statistics from roughly immediately post-reconstruction to
the advent of the New Deal.
Black America was expanding economically and aggressively.
There was an entrepreneurial class.
And, Professor, it seems to me that I would love to get
your sense because, as we think in this legislation about
extending the statute of limitation, which is not without
precedent, would be highly unusual to do, or, as some have
suggested, whether a specific relief bill would be more
appropriate in this case, whatever extraordinary relief the
Congress would consider in this case, is it simply justified by
the fact that this was an incident of barbaric racial violence
that claimed the lives of 200 African-Americans and the one
square mile Black district in the city? Or was there an
economic motive here?
Was this economic progress interrupted that was, if you
will permit a gross analogy, thinly veiled under a sheet of
sectarian racist sentiment?
Professor Franklin?
Mr. Franklin. Well, I could throw the question back to you
by pointing out--asking if Madam Walker had been White, would
there have been some kind of resentment of her.
Mr. Pence. Right.
Mr. Franklin. I think the answer--if I may say so, I would
answer that question by saying no; that she is a part of a
contradiction. She is a part of a resentment that she cannot
rise because the whole culture of this country, not in 1915 or
1916 when Madam Walker came on the scene, but for two centuries
before that, we had had very carefully woven into our
Constitution, into our legal system and everything the notion
that the Madam Walkers of this world must not rise.
Mr. Pence. Right.
Mr. Franklin. They cannot. They cannot because they are not
allowed to. It is contrary to the tradition, history, culture,
law, everything of this country that she cannot--she has no
business rising.
And I think that there might have been some sentiment like
that in the Hookers' store, that, ``What in the world was Mr.
Hooker doing acting like he is not a subservient black
person?'' You see? He has got a store, and he has got goods in
the store. He is acting out of order, that is not what he is
supposed to be doing. He is supposed to be working for someone
else. The experiences I have had, as a grown man over 80, of
people looking at me and saying, ``You are out of order. You
are out of place.''
The night before I got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I
was giving a party at my club, and I went down to see whether
all of my guests had arrived. And when I got in, there was a
woman, a White woman, who met me at the foot of the stairs. And
she said, ``Here, you go and get my coat.'' What was I doing
there, except that I was there to serve her? You see?
You have to understand what this--it is deep. The culture
is deep, and is abiding. It is persistent. It is still here,
which I think we ought to recognize.
Mr. Pence. And they are linked.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. The gentleman's time is----
Mr. Pence. They are linked. Thank you.
Mr. Nadler. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota for 5
minutes.
Mr. Ellison. Professor Franklin, I wonder if you could
share your thoughts on this subject. There has been
demonstration of contrition and sadness, and even it has been
said perhaps one of the best things or perhaps the only thing
we could do is just say ``no more.''
Given that there are survivors who are still around, there
is still economic loss, tremendous economic loss that is still
calculable, and given that the historic record has been laid
out, is simply saying ``no more'' good enough?
Mr. Franklin. No. I would say ``no more'' is not good
enough.
Mr. Ellison. Professor Ogletree, do you have any views on
this subject?
Mr. Ogletree. I agree.
And I actually want to applaud Congressman Pence for
raising the issue of compensation for the economic losses,
because they were substantial. And I think that is exactly the
direction. Whatever the cause may be, the economic losses were
substantial.
Tulsa was booming in terms of the oil industry, the untold
secret. Envy? Yes. Power? Yes. I mean, the Dreamland Theater,
the Stratford Hotel--if you look at this community, it was
thriving, thriving despite segregation, despite racism. This
wasn't Tulsa. This was a Black segregated community that
prospered economically.
And the jealousy was, ``They have something that they
shouldn't have.'' But everything they had was earned--not
government, not public. This was earned dollars, earned
property, earned businesses.
And there is no end to it. The only end to it, I think, is
to try to figure out a way to both provide some form of
compensation for the survivors and their descendants and also
some correction of history.
The one great thing about the Civil Rights Act of 1988, it
didn't just compensate people, but there was a public
commitment to educate so that it never happened again.
And to put Congressman Franks' question in context--the
Holocaust, 1930's; internment, World War II, 1940's; Black
farmers, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's; Tulsa,
1921--it proceeded all--we have corrected all of the rest. But
here is one that is unmistakably clear.
Oklahoma City, 1990, unmistakably clear; race riots in
North Carolina. We are doing all of these things. But here is
one that we have not addressed. And I think your efforts will
make sure it is not enough. It is time to do it.
Mr. Ellison. Yes. You know, Professor Ogletree, I just want
to add that, you know, even in the great State of Minnesota, in
1921, three African-American workers in a circus were lynched.
And it is a horrific tragedy that some people in Duluth,
Minnesota, still talk about.
But I just want to ask Professor Brophy, do you believe
that there are still substantial remedial measures that could
be made available to the victims in this case?
Mr. Brophy. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Yes, I do.
And what I think is so critical is that there are people
still alive who suffered the harm. Right? Oftentimes when the
subject of reparations, for example, for slavery comes up,
people say, ``Well, nobody is still alive who was enslaved.''
What is so critical here and what we saw in the Civil Liberties
Act of 1988 was that direct living connection.
We have the ability, I think, to restore something of that
dreamland that existed for folks who made their way against the
tide in Greenwood. And I hope either through this legislation
or just direct remedial legislation will do that.
Mr. Ellison. And perhaps let me just change the direction
slightly. In this debate, not just here today but in other
arenas, it is often said that, ``Well, you know, the people who
did this, we don't really know exactly who they are. Therefore,
what can we really do?"
But could you explain to the panel, to the folks who might
be listening, what difference it makes that the State was
deeply and fundamentally implicated in this and this is not
simply a matter of one private individual harming other private
individuals? Could you draw the connection to the State?
Mr. Brophy. Sure, right. The way in which people have
spoken about this riot, including the 10th Circuit, was as an
angry White mob. And I think what distinguishes the Tulsa riot
from so many other instances is this is not a claim for general
society reparations. This is a claim for something in which
there has been specific, well-documented government actors--
special deputies, the local police force working in conjunction
with the local, not the out-of-town, the local units of the
National Guard--led to the destruction of Greenwood.
And I think that is what distinguishes this. And that is
some of the really important and new evidence that the Tulsa
Race Riot Commission was able to put together, that this was
the government doing this.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. The gentleman's time is expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Professor Ogletree, let me just get a couple of quick
questions just to make sure we understand what the bill does.
The bill just extends, reopens the statute of limitations. And
if it passes, that would not guarantee anyone's victory. It
would only allow them to bring the case on the merits. Is that
right?
Mr. Ogletree. That is correct.
Mr. Scott. And the plaintiffs in the case are already
identified. They have to have been in the original case and
denied their rights----
Mr. Ogletree. Well, the----
Mr. Scott [continuing]. To be heard.
Mr. Ogletree [continuing]. Action that we filed was on
behalf of all of the surviving plaintiffs and identifiable
descendants as of 2003.
Mr. Scott. And so, is that list of people known?
Mr. Ogletree. Yes, we have the documentation. Edie Fay
Gates has done a tremendous job of compiling data.
And what is interesting--just to be clear about this--the
vast majority of the survivors are not in Oklahoma. If you
think about 1921 when their homes were destroyed, there was no
place to live. There was no shelter. They are in California,
they are in New York, they are in Texas. So they are all around
the country. And we are trying to gather them.
Mr. Scott. But the list is known?
Mr. Ogletree. That is exactly right.
Mr. Scott. And the defendants are insurance companies and
local and State government?
Mr. Ogletree. That is exactly right.
Mr. Scott. And if they are able to bring that case, they
would have to show what the insurance companies didn't pay and
what the governments actually did. Is that right?
Mr. Ogletree. Right.
Mr. Scott. Now, could you explain if there had been no
riot--well, because of the riot what the insurance companies
were--unjust gains and what the plaintiffs actually lost?
Mr. Ogletree. Yes. The Tulsa Race Riots Commission did a
very thorough examination and found records that had been
buried for decades to show who was insured, where they lived,
the amount of loss and how the courts absolved the insurance
companies back in the early 1920's based on actions by Buck
Colbert Franklin.
John Hope Franklin's father was the lawyer trying to
resurrect this in 1923. And the court dismissed all those
claims. But the records from the early 1920's we now have. And
it lays out many of the plaintiffs--not all, but many of the
plaintiffs. And we have many of the descendants of those
plaintiffs as well.
Now, here is the big problem. We have to be clear, though.
I mean, on May 31, 1921, it explodes. June 1st--if you think
about this, this is a war. This is a bomb. You can't go to the
corner store. You can't go to your bedroom. You can't go to
your law office to see a lawyer.
I don't know if we have a slide here, but Buck Colbert
Franklin's--I mean, talking about the courage of the 20th
century. His office was destroyed. His home was destroyed. He
found a few law books left over and literally filed a lawsuit
in a tent on the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was to
represent clients who came through.
And it shows John Hope Franklin's father in that context
trying to figure out what to do. This is what was left. Think
about a lawyer in 1921, no telephone, no office, literally
taking a tent, finding books and sitting there. And that is
what--and history--this is what reminds us.
We know what happened. We just haven't had a remedy. But I
think those records will help us prove it in going forward.
Mr. Scott. And, Dr. Franklin, if there had not been a riot,
could you tell what other opportunities people would have had
in terms of inheritance, business opportunities, educational
opportunities, how they would be better off today had the riot
not occurred?
Mr. Franklin. Well, I can only speculate, Congressman
Scott. I don't think there is any doubt but that, with the
energy that that Black community was already displaying, if
there hadn't been the kind of interruptions which were brought
on by the riot and the various activities connected with it,
there is no question but that the professional people, the
economic enterprisers and all the rest would have moved rapidly
and upwardly in the whole order of the scheme of things.
I don't think there is any question but that if they had
had the opportunity, without the interruption of the riot and
so forth, they would have been infinitely better off in the
next period, in the next decade, say, than they had been in the
previous decade. I don't think there is any question of that.
Their energy and enthusiasm and wisdom and expertise that
they displayed even after the riot suggests to me that if they
had had the opportunity without this kind of tragic
interruption, they would have been far along on the road to
prosperity and that sort of thing.
Mr. Nadler. The time of the gentleman is expired.
The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. I always benefit from earlier questions. And I
do find it sad to look at a middle-class wiped out long after
the justice system was instructed to, in fact, support equal
rights.
But in the case of equal rights, I have a line of
questioning that I want to understand from a standpoint of the
legislation.
I don't think any of us in this room have any question but
that there was an injustice. And the injustice did not have--
because of the times, because of the system--did not provide
you all with a remedy within the time allotted within the
statute.
But I have two questions. One is, if we assume for a moment
that the State case, which you brought, expired and we cannot
make that whole--this legislation doesn't try to preempt the
State and tell them to do something. But from a Federal
standpoint, if this legislation, which it doesn't appear to do,
simply put back into place a venue for you to be made whole in
Federal court for those State laws and Federal laws which were
in effect in 1921, would you be satisfied?
Mr. Ogletree. The answer is no. I think, as you can see,
that some of the harm is both hard to ascertain and to prove,
number one.
And number two, you are right in pinpointing the magnitude
of it. Think about the Jewish families that Congressman Franks
talked about. Your name is Finkelstein, and you are trying to
prove that your family had losses, and they say there are 100
Finkelsteins. How do we know this is you? How can we prove it?
And it is a question of equity. We know you were there. We
know you lost property. We know things were destroyed. And that
is what happened. Black farmers--their records--all the records
were destroyed when they tried to go into an office in Kentucky
or North Carolina. And if they never filed your claim, there is
no records there. So how do you prove it?
I think what----
Mr. Issa. Sure. And I understand that. Although my time is
limited, the question probably begs three follow-ups to maybe
get to a full understanding.
There are injustices on the books. I happen to have a very
large Native American group of tribes in my district. And the
injustices within the Native American community are probably
the only ones that the African-Americans look at and say,
``They had it worse.'' They were exterminated. They were
exterminated in mass quantities deliberately.
So when I look at the injustices, I look at a country which
has historically tried to right the wrong. And we have done
some through legislation. I don't believe we have ever done--I
don't know of a precedent for it, and that is why I am asking.
I don't know that we have ever said we are going to make a
remedy available that wasn't available at the time, and we are
going to say it because of the absence of a statute of
limitation.
The remedies that were available in 1921 or remedies which
were passed specifically envisioning a specific event, from
what I can tell, have not yet been linked. In other words, the
Civil Rights Act was not intended, discussed or created in
order to deal with injustices of 1921 retrospectively. And that
is my question.
This Committee has a very strong hook to the Constitution
and wanting to look at how we can give you everything that we
can give you to make this as just as possible but not cross
that line. And I have concerns that are crossing the line by
essentially saying we are going to give you rights under an act
that was by no way, shape, or form ever envisioned at the time
of the injustice.
Mr. Ogletree. Professor Brophy can respond in a minute, but
I want to show you a slide here from Judge L.J. Martin 2 weeks
after the riot, so this is contemporary.
Mr. Issa. No, look, I am the first to say, give you
everything we can possibly give. My question, though, and in my
limited time, is--and, Professor, maybe you can help me. I am
looking for how we do this without opening Pandora's Box to
essentially looking at everything forever that was done wrong
by passing a subsequent and then retolling against it--and
particularly when I look at Native Americans and reopening,
there is no limit.
Please, Professor.
Mr. Brophy. No, I understand. And that is why I think it is
so critical that this is a discrete tragedy, right, where there
was no--this isn't general societal reparations.
Mr. Issa. Right.
Mr. Brophy. This is very discrete, and people are still
alive.
But what we are asking for is retolling the statute of
limitations for civil rights acts that were on the books in
1921, just not given effect. Right? We sued under 1983, which
you folks passed around 1871. So what we are asking for is our
chance to have a hearing on statutes that we could not have at
the time.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Nadler. The time of the gentleman is expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the
Chairman for convening this important hearing and thank Mr.
Conyers for introducing the bill.
I am almost mesmerized by the quality of the testimony this
morning. I have heard Dr. Franklin speak many, many, many
times. And I don't think I have heard him be more profound than
he was in response to the question that Mr. Pence raised, in
particular. We, in North Carolina, have reached the point
where, if we are in a room with Dr. Franklin, we need to be
listening rather than talking.
And so, I want to direct a general question to Dr. Franklin
that will allow him to just talk to me because I am always
trying to be in that position as much as I can.
One of the concerns that everybody will raise is a spin-off
of the question that was last raised: Once we get on the
slippery slope, what precedents are we setting for other
situations?
There are obviously distinctions and similarities between
what happened in Tulsa and in other localities around the
country. Dr. Ogletree referred to the incidents in Wilmington,
North Carolina, for example.
How might we frame this issue to, number one, address the
concerns about being on a slippery slope that creates a
precedent for other situations, yet not foreclose the
possibility that there may well be other situations that still
cry out for a similar kind of analysis and the possibility of
compensation or opening or waiving of statute of limitation?
And let me address that question to Dr. Franklin, Dr.
Ogletree and Professor Brophy, who at some point in his
testimony said that promises were made at the time to repair
the community, and have the three of you kind of address that
issue for me and the Committee's concern about the slippery
slope.
Mr. Franklin. Well, let me just say very briefly that it is
my view that all of these situations are different. They have
different causes. They have different outcomes. And so, you can
frame your proposals to meet the needs of that particular
situation.
What is interesting about this is that there was a time in
the 1920's when there was widespread expression of willingness
to face the problem and do something about it. If you read the
papers in 1922 and 1923, it is amazing at the effort on the
part of local press and people writing, speaking in the local
press. It is amazing how much contriteness you get and how
willing the community is to face up to this.
And then they shut down. I mean, it is real--it is a real
shutdown. Nothing happens after about 1923 or 1924. And I think
it was because there was this deliberate decision made. I don't
know whether it was made by a corporate group, by the whole
group or whether it was just reached, made by individuals.
But after that, you don't get anything else. It is
stonewalling after that. And there is silence, silence,
complete silence.
And I think that was not true in any other community that I
know about in the post-riot period. But there was in this
community so that the mayor who comes up in much, much later
had never heard of it, never heard of it. And I think that is
where it shut down.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. The time of the gentleman is
expired.
I now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am in awe in being before you, Dr. Franklin. When I was a
Vanderbilt student, your text, ``From Slavery to Freedom,'' was
one of the texts I had, and I have it on my bookcase in
Memphis. And really, to be honest, I wondered if it was your
father because you don't look old enough to have written a book
when I was in college. But I guess that shows my age as well.
[Laughter.]
Can you give us some background on the extent and the rise
of the Klan and the strength they had in this area and in the
South in the 1920's?
Mr. Franklin. Well, of course, the Klan had a period of
decline in the first part of the 20th century, and then they
had a very great recrudescence and rise. In 1915 at Stone
Mountain where they were really resurrected, and they
reorganized. They were inspired, stimulated by, among other
things, ``The Birth of a Nation,'' the first film that came out
that year that glorified the Klan of an earlier period. So that
they do--this is a period of great prosperity for the Klan.
In the late teens and early 1920's, that is when they
flourished greatly. And it is this group already organized now
in 1915, the very year I was born, that is ready, willing, able
and anxious to put down the Blacks of Tulsa and of Rosewood and
of other places in the 1920's. And the Klan is flourishing all
during the 1920's, absolutely flourishing.
And I can remember seeing them parading and so forth. It is
amazing. And it is so un-American. It is so anti-American. It
is so--all of these things that we stand for. And they not only
do that, but they are glorified in doing it and celebrated.
I can think of no other--I don't know that there is
anything that could happen where they bring their children to
lynchings, pass out the body parts as souvenirs and continue
this kind of action in the face of what we ought to have in the
way of law enforcement. There is no enforcement of anything in
this period. And it is the Klan's day.
Mr. Cohen. If I remember my history in the 1920's, I think
they elected some governors or might have come close to it. I
mean, they hit a peak in the 1920's, did they not?
Mr. Franklin. Yes. Yes. I would not be able to say that
Governor So-and-So was elected by the Klan, but----
Mr. Cohen. Right.
I would just like to comment. And I know I have heard
before people say, ``Well, we can't make up for past grievances
and we need to move on.''
But it is kind of like, if you had a football game and you
had one team and you didn't give them shoulder pads and you
didn't give them cleats and you didn't give them helmets and
they didn't have training and they didn't have Gatorade and the
officials were crooked, and you played the game, and you played
the game, and you played the game, and all of a sudden you
realized it is getting near the end of the game and it is 72 to
nothing, you go, ``All right, this was a mistake. We are going
to give you shoulder pads. We are going to give you real
helmets. We are going to start to give you Gatorade and train
you and all the right things. And we are going to have real
good officials now,'' but it is 72 to nothing, and there is 3
minutes left. That is not fair.
And that is what you are saying when you say, ``Well, we
just can't make up for these. They happened in the past, but
let us just let bygones be bygones, and let us start over
now.''
There are a lot of companies that are ``So-and-So and
Sons,'' or ``So-and-So, So-and-So, So-and-So, So-and-So and
Sons.'' But African-American people who were in Tulsa couldn't
be that because their property and their businesses were
destroyed. And they didn't have that opportunity. They didn't
have capital going through generations to give them
opportunities.
And statute of limitations are basically for the ordered
society. It is for who is in control. It is for the defendant.
It is never for the plaintiff. It is to give people who are
liable a date that they can clean up their books and move on.
And this is such an horrendous case that there should be
some way to get beyond the statute of limitations. And we need
to do that, because statute of limitations aren't for people
who have been aggrieved; they are for people who were the
aggriever. That is what they are all about. And that is what a
lot of the system is about, is a defense bar.
So I am pleased that the Chairman of the Subcommittee has
held this hearing and that Chairman Conyers has brought this
bill. It has been edifying to me. And I am going to do what I
can to follow the lead to see justice is brought forth.
And I thank you.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. The time of the gentleman is
expired.
I now recognize for 5 minutes the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chairman very much.
And let me thank the Chairman of the full Committee for a
concise, constructive and forthright initiative through
legislation.
If I might for a moment reflect on the crossroads of
history and comment on the panel that is before us, because I
think sometimes history crosses paths and we have choices to
make in the direction that we travel.
Let me acknowledge Dr. Brophy because he comes out of a
segregated South. And when I say that, he now teaches at the
University of Alabama. And he is here before us to make an
argument in support of relief, if you will, for those who have
been aggrieved and makes one speechless about how they have
been aggrieved.
Dr. Franklin, someone had mentioned how youthful you look,
but how interesting it is that you are the son of a survivor or
a son of one of those who, not only was at the cornerstone of
helping those who had been grieved, but now you have come to be
a premier historian for this nation and I might say for the
world.
I do want to as well out of a moment of personal privilege
acknowledge Dr. Hooker. And I will ask her the first question
because she is a living survivor but yet the first African-
American woman at the Coast Guard or joined the Coast Guard,
but I note a meritus professor at Duke University School of
Law. That is no short accomplishment.
And, Dr. Ogletree, Professor Ogletree, you come from the
school of W.E.B. Dubois, however he could have gotten there. So
I want to make note of this panel.
Dr. Hooker, let me ask you as I try to make sure that we
understand that H.R. 1995, the legislation that Chairman
Conyers has offered, really goes no further than what this body
has been asked to do in times past. I don't think it goes any
further than the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. And why I say
this is that it is a pathway for seeking remedy.
There is nothing in this--this is not a private bill which
says--and as we pass this, we will dispense certain dollars to
these survivors or their descendants. Mind you, through 9/11,
as my colleagues have said, we actually through a congressional
action--and certainly, that was a horrific tragedy--actually
dispensed or created a vehicle for monies to be dispensed.
So we have gone further than this legislation. I think it
is very important to let everyone know that this is a four
corners document. It ends on this page of the document. It says
you can go to court.
Dr. Hooker, would you tell me again. You said you looked
out the window, your mother showed you a gun, a machine gun
with an American flag. Was that accurate? Is that what you said
in your testimony?
Ms. Hooker. That is what I said. And that is what we
experienced. The machine gun captain, when he ordered us out of
the house, said, ``I can't protect you.'' But the guns and the
bullets were hitting the house. He said he was shooting at the
mob, but it was hitting the house and could have killed us.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So you were confused because, whether or
not he was part of the State action that we speak of, it was
unclear because the bullets were hitting the house?
Ms. Hooker. It was unclear to me why someone who was sent
to protect you was not protecting you. And they took the men
away. And my 8-year-old brother was one of the ones they
interned before they turned the mob loose. In other words, they
cleared out all the male population and locked them up, and
then said to the mob, ``There is nothing out there but women
and children.''
Ms. Jackson Lee. And that was a State action, might I make
it very clear. Dr. Hooker could testify to that if this bill
was to pass.
Dr. Franklin, would you then respond to a, if you will,
suggestion that we have made it, there are individual success
stories in the African-American population, there are
individual success stories in the population that sits before
us, the survivors; why then would there need to be a remedy?
Mr. Franklin. Well, I think there needs to be a remedy
because the individual success stories do not explain the
plight of these victims, you see. When you look at the victims,
you have to think about the least that can be done to
facilitate their progress or their survival.
And I think one of the things we often do or too often do
in this country is to--it is to point to Booker Washington or
whatever and say that why can't you do what Booker Washington
did or why can't you do what someone else did that has risen.
But you can't do that. That is not what the opportunities
provide.
The least among us is the one that ought to be watched and
cared for and looked after, not the successful ones, sometimes
lucky, successful ones, but the least.
Mr. Nadler. The gentlelady's time is expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Nadler. The time of the gentlelady is expired.
I now yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from California.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very
appreciative for this hearing that you are holding.
And I would like to thank Chairman Conyers for authoring or
sponsoring the legislation that would effectively waive the
statute of limitations, I suppose, in this case. The 10th
Circuit was just simply wrong.
And I would like to thank particularly Professor Ogletree
for his persistence. He has stuck with this, along with Dorothy
Tillman over there from Chicago. It is the kind of persistence
and strength we don't see a lot of these days. It is just
remarkable.
I would like to thank Dr. John Hope Franklin for his
consistent, ever-present involvement in civil rights and
justice.
And for all of the survivors, I am just in awe. These
survivors have been on this trail for a long time. I was
recalling earlier about the Supreme Court in the dead of winter
when these aged survivors did not complain. They were there
bundled up. I have been to Tulsa with Professor Ogletree. They
are always there. They sit for hours. It is absolutely amazing.
And I thank all of you. And I am dedicated to the
proposition that if you can do this, we can do this. And it
makes a difference that now that we are in charge that we do
everything that we possibly can to get some justice in this
case.
Let me just say that there is a gentleman in the back of
the room. He is a cab driver. His name is Mack. He drove me,
picked me up on the corner this morning as I was coming to
work. He said when he heard my voice, he recognized the voice.
He said, ``Are you that lady from California? Do you know
anything about this hearing that is going to be held today?''
And I said, ``Yes, I do. And I am on my way there.'' And he
said, ``Well, you know, I want to come, too.'' I said, ``Well,
park this cab and get over there and come on over here with
us.''
And there he is in the back of the room. And that is Mack
who has been driving a cab. Mack has been driving a cab for 40
years. He is a third-generation Washingtonian.
But it is the Macks of the world who depend on us to make
things right. I mean, you have got a lot of people out there
who care about what happens with all of this. And so, I am glad
that he is here. And I am glad that we are here and we are able
to exercise our power and our influence.
Now, I was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus when
we negotiated with Janet Reno to waive the statute of
limitations. I remember her coming to my office with Rahm
Emanuel. I kicked Rahm Emanuel out of my office because he
didn't think it could be done. And we convinced Bill Clinton
and Janet Reno to move.
And as I understand it, it was when they came to this
Committee that you created and helped to fashion, along with
Sensenbrenner, the statute that was needed. We did it then, and
we can do it again. We can do it again because there is nothing
that stops the Federal Government from deciding that it can do
it.
As I understand, everything taking a look at what has been
put before us today, the 10th Circuit had the option. It did
not exercise the option. And the reasons that they gave are not
substantial, in my estimation, having reviewed this.
So from here, we get this out of Committee. We work it past
the floor. We get our Senate with us. And we will put it on the
president's desk. And we will stand with it until justice is
done.
In closing, let me just say, again, Mr. Chairman, you have
worked hard for so many years in doing the impossible. And,
again, you have demonstrated your courage by taking up an issue
that has been ignored for too long. And this will be part of
your legacy and all of our legacy, I suppose. We know what the
obstacles are that will be placed before us.
But, Mr. Ogletree, let me just say to you, Professor, if
you may, just answer one question in this time limit that I
have. What is it that made you so determined, so sure that this
was the right thing to do? Why have you stuck with this so long
and so hard?
Mr. Ogletree. Congressman Waters, thank you so much.
It happened because--and Congressman Nadler, two of your
constituents, Michele Roberts, one of the lawyers from New York
is here. She worked with us. And Fay Anderson is also from New
York. They are here for the hearing. I stuck with it because I
walked into a room in 2003, saw these people. And no one had
ever said, ``I am sorry, I understand, and I want to help.''
What makes it amazing is that I talked to Wess Young about
what they received, and I made a mistake. I said they got a
gold medal from the State of Oklahoma. He said, ``No, first, it
is not gold; it is brass. And it was given by the Black caucus
from Oklahoma.'' That is all they have ever been given. And
that, to me, is an American tragedy.
And if I have--when I went to Johnny Cochran, he put money
in. Everyone saw this as something that--this is what our life
is about. If we are here with God's grace to do something,
these are the cases that matter, not the ones that make money
or give us fame, but the unknown, the faceless, the powerless.
That is what we do.
And I am so glad that 4 years ago when we filed this
lawsuit--and we have lost, we have lost, we have lost, we have
lost--to even be before Congress, to have you here present, to
have a bill with their fingerprints on it, we have made it.
And we will use every ounce of our breath and our
commitment to make sure that they in their lifetime can tell
their children and now grandchildren, now great-grandchildren
and great-great-grandchildren somebody heard them in the
wilderness and gave them comfort. That is why I am here.
Mr. Watt. And finally, if I may, 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Nadler. Without objection.
Mr. Watt. I don't know if the Committee had an opportunity
to meet the survivors. Did they? And they know who is here with
us today?
Mr. Ogletree. Very briefly. But they are here.
Just one last time, Otis Clark, 104-year-old, is the oldest
survivor. If he will stand.
Mr. Watt. One-hundred-and-four years old.
Mr. Ogletree. Wess Young, 91-year-old survivor; Dr. Olivia
Hooker, 91-year-old survivor; and John Hope Franklin, 92-year-
old son of Buck Colvert Franklin; and Edie Fay Gates, who has
been the chronicler of their work; and former Representative
Don Ross, who has written it; and their current representative
who lives in their--they live in the district, Jamar Shomate.
I think I have gotten everybody. Those are the folks. And
the next generation, Demarial Solomon Simmons, the young man
from Oklahoma who is going to help make this thing go forward.
Mr. Watt. Demarial, yes. Yes. Thank you.
Mr. Ogletree. Thank you.
I would ask the Chairman, if we could--I have been showing
the PowerPoint that describes much of the timeline. With your
permission, I would like to have that in the record for this
Committee to consider.
Mr. Nadler. Without objection.
[The information referred to is available in the Appendix.]
Mr. Nadler. The Chair thanks the witnesses and all the
survivors and the other people who came today.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit to the Chair additional written questions for the
witnesses, which we will forward and ask the witnesses to
respond as promptly as you can so that your answers may be part
of the record.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit any additional materials for inclusion in the record.
Again, I thank all participants.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record