On May 31, 1921, one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history completely decimated Tulsa’s thriving, all-Black community of Greenwood. A large white mob overwhelmed the approximately 40-square-block community, killing hundreds of Black residents, injuring thousands more, burning down more than 1,000 homes and businesses, and stealing residents’ personal property.

To seek justice through the legal system, in 2021, McDermott Will & Schulte and Justice for Greenwood (JFG) founder and civil rights lawyer Damario Solomon-Simmons represented the massacre’s only known three living survivors at the time – 111-year-old Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle, Viola Ford “Mother” Fletcher, who passed away in 2025 at 111, and Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, who passed away in 2023 at 102 – in the groundbreaking lawsuit Randle v. City of Tulsa et. al.

McDermott Will & Schulte’s Task Force for Racial Justice Initiatives identified the opportunity to join the Tulsa Race Massacre litigation. We created our Task Force for Racial Justice Initiatives to help the firm identify and implement pro bono initiatives directed at addressing ongoing issues of community racial injustice, like those in Randle.

Although Randle was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2024, our work made an impact. When we joined the Tulsa Race Massacre litigation, our clients were living in poverty. Today, the last living survivor, Mother Randle lives in a high-quality living facility and receives excellent medical care. Mother Randle, Mother Fletcher, and Uncle Red are rightly recognized as brave, resilient survivors. Since 2021, our lawsuit has been covered by every major news outlet, including extensive coverage by The New York Times, CBS, PBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, ABC World News, MSNBC, The Telegraph, The Washington Post, Reuters, Forbes, Bloomberg, and many more. In January 2025, the DOJ issued a report recognizing the systematic destruction of the peaceful Greenwood community – for the first time in more than 100 years, the federal government created an official record of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

On the first official Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, June 1, 2025, the mayor announced the “Road to Repair.” Many of the commitments in the Road to Repair echo the very proposals that our legal team has spent years fighting to bring to light and were demanded in our lawsuit. Based on our advocacy, the mayor also announced that more than 45,000 previously unreleased records tied to the Massacre would be made public – a long overdue step toward truth-telling and historical accountability.

Over the last 4 years, nearly 100 lawyers and business staff have worked with JFG or on our litigation representing the last living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. This work included preparing the survivors’ wills, drafting their testimony before Congress, and providing public relations, communications, docketing and court services, and IT support. In addition, an amazing team of 21 business staff each dedicated several hours a week to JFG, calling hundreds of self-identified massacre descendants as part of JFG’s descendant outreach and oral history project.