Race-riot recourse blocked Supreme Court refuses appeal after decisions.

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal from 1921 Tulsa race riot victims and their descendants who wanted to sue the city and the state of Oklahoma for damages inflicted on the city's black people and business district.

Without comment, the high court rejected the case, effectively affirming decisions by two federal courts that victims waited too long to file claims.

"The justice system has once again denied the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riots what they so richly deserve after 84 years of concealment and suppression of evidence: their day in court, said Charles Ogletree, who represents the survivors.

Tulsa Deputy City Attorney Larry Simmons said the court's decision was not unexpected because of earlier rulings.

"Clearly they separated the legal from the emotional issues, said Weldon Poe, assistant state attorney general.

The victims and descendants filed their appeal here with some fanfare a news conference on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in March. And, last week, some of the survivors described their memories of the riot to members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Alternatives sought With Monday's appeal rejection, the case's hundreds of named plaintiffs now must look for other remedies.

"These survivors will not be deterred, nor will those who continue to offer them our unequivocal support, Ogletree said. "We will continue this fight in every venue imaginable and are not going to stop seeking justice.

The case originally was filed in federal district court in Tulsa in February 2003; the lawsuit against the city and state of Oklahoma claimed civil rights violations and said the state's typical two-year limitation on filing such cases shouldn't apply because of a vast cover-up in the riot's aftermath.

The victims and descendants, backed by a group of historians who filed a brief in the case, claimed hard evidence of the complicity of the Tulsa police and the National Guard in the 1921 carnage wasn't available until a special Oklahoma commission investigated the riot and issued a report in 2001.

But the district judge granted the motion by the city and the state to dismiss the case, ruling victims had time between the riot and the commission's report 80 years later to determine the city's responsibility and file claims.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the suit's dismissal, stating there had been ample time to file a lawsuit, particularly after Congress passed civil rights legislation in the 1960s and after a book about the riot was published in 1982.

"In fact, plaintiffs neither allege nor even imply that they were prohibited from accessing the courts in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, the appeals court wrote.

"The Tulsa Race Riot represents a tragic chapter in our collective history. While we have found no legal avenue exists through which Plaintiffs can bring their claims, we take no great comfort in that conclusion.

The riot victims and descendants were represented by Ogletree, a Harvard University Law professor who also provided legal advice to Anita Hill during 1991 Senate hearings related to Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Tulsa riot touched off by rumors a black man had assaulted a white woman began May 31, 1921. A mob of white people, many deputized by the Tulsa police, shot black residents and destroyed the then thriving Greenwood district. The official death toll when the riot ended the next day was 37, though it has been estimated that more than 300 people were killed.

The National Guard was called in and, according to accounts, essentially enabled the white mob by arresting blacks and preventing them from defending themselves and their homes.

Arguing to the Supreme Court against hearing claims for damages now, Tulsa city attorneys noted that hundreds of claims were filed against the city in the years immediately after the riot.

Those claims were dismissed, but the Tulsa attorneys say they at least show the black community believed then that the city "acted with conspiratorial lust and zeal to direct destruction upon Tulsa's African American community.

However, the Tulsa attorneys wrote in a brief with the Supreme Court, "unlike the hundreds who filed claims and lawsuits in 1923, the (victims and descendants now suing) waited more than 80 years before taking any civil action to pursue their legal rights.

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