Dr.
Kerr requests
Presbyterian lawyers
to analyse
legal rights
of Greenwood
Blacks:
Rejecting
the June 1921 Tulsa Grand Jury Report blaming the
Greenwood community for
starting the
Tulsa Racial
War as an obvious 'white-wash',
in an
effort to secure justice
for the injured Black
community Dr. Charles
W. Kerr
requested four prominent senior
lawyers (of Scots descent whose fathers had been Union Officers)
from his
congregation to investigate the true facts behind the
Race War and to analyse the resulting
legal situation.
Dr. Kerr
in Pastor's
Office at Tulsa's
First Presbyterian
Church:
Tulsa's white ministers refused Dr.
Kerr's call
to join in brotherhood
with
the Greenwood Pastors:
¿'GREEN COUNTRY' Christianity?
These four Presbyterian
lawyers discovered that
the actual origins of
the Tulsa racial
conflict arose from the official lie
made by City Officials that the lawful
actions
of the Greenwood Black Veterans under Oklahoma State Law (see 21 O. S. §643(3); 22
O.S. §33; 6 Okla
Law Review 231) ...
to protect the Courthouse from the lynch mob and to
prevent the murder of the falsely accused Black youth ...
constituted a 'Negro
Insurrection'.
This
official lie
of a 'Negro
Insurrection' was
made by Tulsa's City Government to
provide a
'legal
justification' to
give Tulsa's
leading citizens constituting the original
Courthouse lynch mob,
congregating at the Police Station after encountering
the armed troop of Greenwood Veterans,
their demanded opportunity 'to put down' the Greenwood
Black population.
Factually,
Dr. Kerr's
First Presbyterian
Church lawyers
found that there was no 'civil
insurrection' of any
type amongst
the peaceful Greenwood Black population.
One
of the lawyers told Dr. Kerr, 'The only insurrection which
occurred that night was a white
insurrection:
Instigated by Richard Lloyd Jones' Tribune
editorial, Tulsa's
white downtown business community besieged the Courthouse to
lynch the Black youth in open insurrection against the law,
order, and due process of law guaranteed all Americans by the
Constitution. Tulsa's
Police Department joined this white insurrection by disappearing
from the streets in 'tacit consent' to the lynching proposed by
Richard Lloyd Jones. Tulsa's
City Father's joined this white insurrection by formally
declaring the completely lawful actions of the Greenwood
Veterans to be a 'Negro Insurrection'
as a dishonest excuse for clearing out the entire
Coloured district for
construction of a rail switchyard, industrial supply, and
warehouse district desired
by Tulsa's community leaders.
Later, in response to the City Father's call to arms
some fifteen to twenty thousand Tulsa gunmen joined in
this white insurrection to slaughter the Greenwood Coloured
population. Tulsa's
City Fathers supplied these white insurrectionaries with
enough gasoline to burn down every church,
home, and business in the Coloured district.
The white population of the entire City of Tulsa were in
public insurrection against
the Constitution. Only
the Greenwood Veterans were defending the Constitution
that night.'
The
four First
Presbyterian Church
lawyers also
discovered that
Tulsa's prominent
oil magnates,
bankers, businessmen,
and civic
leaders congregating
at the Police
Station had
deliberately influenced
the City
Officials planning
the invasion of
Greenwood ... to target for
intentional arson large sections of
Greenwood running parallel
to the Midland Valley
Railroad tracks
forming the
eastern boundary
of the
Greenwood Black
district. See
21 O. S. §1401 re "Arson"
Greenwood cleared
out for
rail, industrial
& warehouse
district:
This is evidences 'how' the City of Tulsa treats its Black
Citizens:
'Equal
rights' in
'GREEN COUNTRY'
The
lawyers discovered
that such arson
was done 'to clear out' the Black population for
the future
construction of
a rail
switchyard, industrial,
and warehouse
district on
the site
of Greenwood long
desired by
Tulsa's civic
leaders ...
as well
as to
lower the
high fair market value of improved
Black-owned property to the 'fire
sale prices' at which Tulsa's civic leadership
hoped to purchased the arsoned properties.
The
lawyers discovered that the City
of Tulsa Government
supplied massive
amounts of
petrol
from the City's
own supply ...
in quantities
sufficient to arson every home,
church, and
business in the Greenwood Black
district. Maps
indicated that the arsoned
sections
of Greenwood
were approximately those
areas needed for the
Tulsa civic
leadership's long-desired
rail, warehouse,
and industrial district.
These
four Presbyterian lawyers reported to Dr. Kerr that the arson of
Greenwood was not 'accidental'
by 'persons
unknown' --
as claimed by Tulsa's City Government and Richard Lloyd
Jones' The Tulsa Tribune.
Rather, the lawyers discovered that the complete arson of
Greenwood was
deliberate, planned in advance the night before by
Tulsa's responsible
public safety policymakers with malice aforethought at
the specific request of Tulsa's civic leadership
milling about the Police Station:
To clear out the Black population to make way for the
construction of a rail switchyard, warehouse and industrial
district on the site of Greenwood long-desired by the civic
leaders … as well
as to reduce the high market value of improved Greenwood
property for future
purchase by leading Tulsans at 'fire sale' prices.
Lowering
Greenwood 'improved property
values' for
later
'fire
sale'
purchase by Tulsa's oil-wealthy Establishment
The
lawyers' investigation concluded that a 'common plan' had been
formulated that night between Tulsa's City Government and
Tulsa's civic leadership to
force the Black population out of Tulsa.
The lawyers told
Dr. Kerr that this 'common plan'
to force the Blacks out of Tulsa
under colour of the City's authority under State law to
suppress a falsely contrived 'Negro Insurrection'
violated the Federal constitutional and statutory rights
re equal protection of the laws and equal privileges and
immunities under the laws of the Greenwood Black
population under Sec. 1 of the 1870
Ku Klux Act:
42
U.S.C.A. §1983
As
one of the lawyers remarked,
'Dr. Kerr this was no "race riot" but a
deliberate declaration of public war upon the Greenwood Coloured
population by the Government of the City of Tulsa
in direct
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights, and
the Federal Reconstruction laws.
This was about as 'justified' as the Kaiser's 1914
invasion of Belgium.'
Today, the 1921 'Tulsa Race Riot' would be known as an
ethnic
cleansing….
Greenwood
home intentionally
arsoned by
City of Tulsa
to clear
out Black
population for
Tulsa civic
leadership's long-proposed
rail switchyard,
industrial, and
warehouse district
and never
re-built
The four Presbyterian lawyers
also discovered that in the immediate aftermath of the Race War
that the Government of City of Tulsa and its confederates
amongst Tulsa' civic leadership had meticulously destroyed all
documentary evidence of the City Government's criminal
responsibility for the mass murder of hundreds of Blacks and intentional
arson of Greenwood.
The lawyers investigation
revealed that such evidence was deliberately destroyed for the
purpose of obstructing, hindering, or preventing the injured
Greenwood Blacks from bringing cases for damages against the
City Government, the wealthy oilmen specially deputised as
'Emergency Police Deputies', and the City's confederates among
the civic leadership in
order to deny these injured Blacks equal protection of both
Federal and Oklahoma laws and to prevent such injured Black
property owners from enforcing the equal protection of the laws.
Such evidence was destroyed to prevent the injured Blacks
from bringing a case under Sec. 1 of the Ku Klux Act of 20 April
1870.
The four lawyers told Dr. Kerr
that such deliberate
destruction of evidence to deny the Greenwood Blacks
effective legal relief violated
Sec. 2 of the Ku Klux Act: 42 U.S.C.A. §1985(2).
Unfortunately, the lawyers said
that the judicial deference which American
Courts must constitutionally give to the City of Tulsa's official
lie of a 'Negro Insurrection' as a
discretionary 'ministerial act'
will allow the City Government to defeat a court case for
the obstruction of
justice ...
on the
basis that
armed suppression
was necessary to defeat the non-existent 'Negro Insurrection'
-- hence, all
aspects of the City's actions were absolutely privileged.
Due to this constitutionally required judicial deference,
the destruction of evidence initiated a continuing
legal situation re
violation of 42 U.S.C.A. §1985(2)
by the
City of Tulsa and its confederates.
Only a
Congressional Declaration repudiating the City's official lie as a deliberate legal error and the
suppression of the fictional 'Negro Insurrection' as a
deliberate legal wrong can remove this judicial deference and 'discover'
a case for
the obstruction of justice under 42 U.S.C.A. 1985(2).
Government and its confederates amongst Tulsa's oil-wealthy
civic leadership included:
- The
police telephone logs evidencing actual knowledge by the Police of the lawful intentions of the Greenwood Veterans
under State law (21
O. S. §643(3); 22 O.S. §33;
6 Okla Law Review 231);
- The
log of voters who were specially commissioned by the City
Government as 'Emergency Police Deputies'
-- required
by 51 Oklahoma Statutes §16;
- The
City Government's operational plan of attack upon Greenwood
together with all maps and other documentary evidence of the
City's invasion and arson of Greenwood;
- Records
of the City's petrol supplies
… from
which the
City's specially
deputised agents
were supplied
petrol
to arson every
structure in
Greenwood.
- Records
of the mass graves in which the
City Government
had buried
the Greenwood Black people;
- Certain
records of the State Militia and transcripts of damaging
testimony given to the Grand Jury's inquest and at the trial of
the Police Chief.
