Race riot dismissal seemed symbolic

BY RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
1/20/13 at 8:36 AM

Justice welcomed by families

From a practical standpoint, dismissing an 86-year-old indictment is little more than a formality. Time has already rendered it a legal dead letter.

Symbolically, however, such action can have great meaning.

So it was Tuesday morning in an unusual court hearing convened at the Greenwood Cultural Center, when charges lingering on the books since Tulsa's 1921 Race Riot were formally dropped by Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris.

"Justice delayed in this instance is not justice denied," said District Judge Jesse Harris in granting Tim Harris' motion for dismissal. "Justice at any time is an essential part of justice at all times."

Tim Harris' motion involved an indictment against nearly 60 men, issued by a Tulsa County grand jury less than two weeks after the 1921 riot. Although a few of the men seem to have been arraigned in the case, none seems to have come to trial.

But because the charges against the men included murder, the indictment theoretically remained open.

Tim Harris told the court he could find no evidence capable of supporting the indictment and that in any event the defendants' constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial had inarguably been violated.

"These men are probably all deceased. Any witnesses that might have been called are deceased," he said.

Tim Harris' action was prompted by an inquiry from Barbara Nevergold, a University of Buffalo professor researching A.J. Smitherman, one of the men named in the indictment.

Smitherman published a local newspaper called the Tulsa Star and was identified as a leader of a group of armed men who went to the Tulsa County Courthouse on the evening of May 31, 1921, in the belief that a young black man named Dick Rowland might be lynched.

A confrontation with whites at the courthouse touched off the riot, which left at least three dozen dead, hundreds injured and thousands homeless.

Nevergold acknowledged that many people have difficulty understanding the emotional intensity still evoked by the riot.

"A lot of people say the riot is old news, to forget about it and just move on, in the mistaken belief that history has no relevance to today," Nevergold said.

Lea Cash, whose grandfather Jack Scott was among those listed in the indictment, wept when her flight to Tulsa for Tuesday's ceremony was cancelled because of weather.

"This is important to me because it begins to give closure to the kind of man my grandfather was," Cash said by telephone.

Unlike Smitherman, who fled Tulsa and ended up in Buffalo, N.Y., Jack Scott remained in Tulsa until his death in 1964. Scott, a former professional boxer, suffered about $50,000 in property damage from the riot. In today's dollars that would be estimated at over $500,000. He subsequently owned a small store and two rent houses on North Greenwood Place, Cash said, but was never the same.

"He became a very bitter, very angry man," she said.

Cash's grandmother Daisy Scott was also affected. She had been the Tulsa Star's political cartoonist.

"She never started up again after the riot," Cash said. "Her heart wasn't in it."

During Tuesday's proceedings, Mayor Kathy Taylor issued citations to longtime Tulsans Eddie Faye Gates and Ceasar Latimer Sr., both of whom have been involved in race riot-related litigation.

Randy Krehbiel 581-8365
randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

Associated Images:

Caesar Latimer Sr. listens during Tuesday’s hearing to dismiss an indictment stemming from the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. Latimer received aspecial citation from Mayor Kathy Taylor (far left) during the proceedings. Also pictured is Derek Gates, who accepted a similar honor on behalf ofhis mother, Eddie Faye Gates.

District Judge Jesse Harrisdismisses an 86-year-oldindictment stemming fromTulsa’s 1921 Race Riot.