When More than Property Is Lost: The Dignity Losses and Restoration of the Tulsa Riot of 1921

Abstract

Bernadette Atuahene's We Want What's Ours focuses on deprivations that go beyond property losses. Her focus is on the dignity harms to South Africans over centuries, such as denial of citizenship, that accompanied the theft of their land. I focus here on one grotesque episode of violence, the Tulsa race riot of 1921, to gauge dignity takings in a US context. Thousands were, in the parlance of the times, run out of town in a “negro drive.” They lost property, but also their community, and they could not assert their rights after the riot. This article turns to the ways in which African Americans in Oklahoma obtained rights through the courts that should have been protected around the time of the riot. This expands our sense of the range of responses, from apologies and compensation, to additional judicial process and substantive rights, that are needed for past racial crimes.

Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration: Creating a New Theoretical Framework for Understanding Involuntary Property Loss and the Remedies Required

“…Throughout US history, African Americans have been subjected to dignity takings in a variety of contexts. As Brophy (2016) argues, one of the most notorious examples was the 1921 Tulsa race riot. Extralegal lynchings were rampant, and the riot began because the African American community in Tulsa decided to finally take a stand against this injustice.…”

“…But, the intangible damage that eludes sight was even worse because African Americans were treated as sub persons and denied their dignity. Brophy (2016) reports that after the riot, the denial of rights continued and the humiliation escalated when blacks were tagged like dogs and placed in concentration camps. The extreme violence perpetrated by the white community was an attempt to keep African Americans in their subordinate position, making it clear that they were not equals, had no basic rights, and thus extralegal lynchings would continue unabated.…”

“…As one South African so vividly put it, “I was a toothless citizen” (Atuahene 2014a, 45). In this symposium, we learn of others who had no choice, namely, African Americans whose property was destroyed and confiscated as a consequence of the Tulsa riot (Brophy 2016), members of the Hopi tribe who were deprived of their native lands and then decades later forced to endure the desecration of their sacred mountain (Richland 2016), Jews, Roma, and Sinti fleeced and exterminated by the Nazis during World War II (Veraart 2016), Bedouins forcibly removed from their native lands and prevented from living according to their nomadic customs (Kedar 2016), the Ikrit villagers summarily uprooted by the Israeli military (Kedar 2016), and Chinese peasants removed from their farms and made casualties of China's urban expansion (Pils 2016).…”

“…Dignity restoration can also take the form of material or symbolic redress. The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act (2001) provides monies for Greenwood's economic development and college scholarships for the descendants of Greenwood residents, as well as the creation of a memorial (Brophy 2016).…”

“…To further develop and refine the concepts of dignity takings and dignity restoration, symposium authors consider their application beyond the South African context. Case studies include: the separation of Hopi people from their sacred lands (Richland 2016); the requirement that all married women give their property to their husbands under the laws of coverture (Hartog 2016); the dispossession of Bedouins and Arab citizens in Israel (Kedar 2016); the looting, burning, and destruction of African American property during and after the 1921 Tulsa race riot (Brophy 2016); the property taken from Loyalists during the course of the American Revolution (Hulsebosch 2016); the forced evictions in China intended to create space for its rapidly expanding cities (Pils 2016); the use of racially restrictive covenants in the United States (Rose 2016); and the taking of Jewish property in France and the Netherlands during World War II (Veraart 2016). By testing the concepts of dignity takings and dignity restoration in a variety of cases, contributors are able to confirm, extend, or revise my original formulation of these concepts.…”