The Tulsa massacre of 1921 may have become known to many Americans because of a fictional HBO series, but it actually happened. Is the probable discovery of heretofore undiscovered mass graves in Tulsa enough to propel the city to a reckoning — an unambiguous admission of responsibility for horrific acts and a determined mind to make right what was wrong? We are about to find out.

In a recent public oversight committee meeting in Tulsa, it was announced that a team of forensic scientists using ground-penetrating radar at sites around the city found anomalies consistent with mass graves at two locations, suggesting that the scale and scope of the massacre may be even more extensive than previously admitted by authorities. Until the truth is reckoned with, the stench of racism will hover on Tulsa.

The original narrative around the 1921 Tulsa massacre was that Blacks were armed, intoxicated and unjustifiably violent. The local paper described the Greenwood section of the city not as Black Wall Street, but as “Niggertown,” and original official estimates were about 36 people killed. These reports were contradicted by American Red Cross Worker Maurice Willows, who spoke of mass graves and estimated the dead at 300.

The racist narrative around the 1921 massacre was false. The Black community was preventing a lynch mob from killing a young Black man who had been unjustly arrested. The only shot fired by a Black person while confronting the lynch mob came during a struggle with a white man and resulted in no one being injured. During the massacre, people took private airplanes and flew over Greenwood dropping burning balls of turpentine on the buildings and homes, causing many of the structures to burn from their top. Blacks were gunned down in the street when they fled burning buildings.

This was not a riot or a disturbance — it was a massacre. And the findings suggest a deliberate attempt to cover-up what happened — an attempt that was successful for decades.

The mayor of Tulsa has called these possible mass grave sites potential crime scenes. Why? Because nobody was prosecuted for their role in the massacre, despite the existence of photographs showing whites walking down the street carrying guns and the ability to identify whites who had access to planes on the day of the massacre.

Over the last 99 years, prosecutors and law enforcement turned a blind eye to this atrocity committed against the Black community of Tulsa. Even if no one alive can be prosecuted, naming names and placing responsibility where it lies is a critical part of a reckoning. 

The narrative the 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher by Tulsa police reflected the narrative about the 1921 massacre. Both narratives suggest that the deaths of Black people were ultimately their own fault. 

When the findings of the forensic team were announced Monday, Terence Crutcher’s twin sister Dr. Tiffany Crutcher was in the audience. She left her career to establish the Terence Crutcher Foundation, and she has led the way in making sure the false narrative about her brother does not survive. The not-guilty verdict in the criminal trial of Crutcher’s killer simply means the state did not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The verdict does not change the fact that Terence had his hands in the air and was unarmed, was not advancing toward the officers when he was shot, and never made an aggressive move toward the officers. The verdict does not change the fact that the officer who killed Crutcher admitted that she had cleared his car and determined that there were no weapons in it before she killed him. The verdict doesn’t change the fact that the same jury that acquitted the officer appended a note to the verdict questioning her training and her actions, and whether she should be allowed to return to law enforcement. 

A reckoning for the massacre and the murder is required and overdue. Tulsa can reject the false racialized narrative it has clung to for a century and start a new 100 years of progress away from racism. 

Apologies and commemorations are a necessary part of the reckoning process, but they are not enough. A true reckoning requires action — and leaders of impacted communities in Tulsa should expect action when they speak to the city about making what is wrong right again.

Jeffery Robinson, ACLU Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality

During the holiday season, in the picturesque town of Petoskey, Michigan, Kimiko Uyeda, and her son Marshall celebrate with an annual tradition of selecting a new ornament to add to their tree. Year after year, Kimko and Marshall add to their collection of ornaments as a part of their tradition.

For years, however, they were separated from one another and unable to enjoy this holiday tradition together. It all began in 2013 when Kimko was arrested for filing what the local sheriff believed to be a false police report. Because of broken sentencing laws, the prosecutor in the case was able to add four additional criminal charges that would result in Kimko spending years separated from Marshall.  

Kimko was not only raising her son at the time but the owner of a building trades company with nine employees. She also managed to run a special needs riding program with 26 horses.

What legal experts say should have resulted in probation, ended with Kimko facing 20 years behind bars because of outdated sentencing laws that feed Michigan’s mass incarceration crisis.

Though Michigan is a particularly bad actor, states across the country continue to apply outdated sentencing laws that keep people locked behind bars for excessively long times. These laws are implemented despite large bodies of research that show that longer prison sentences ultimately do not make our communities safer.

Decades of “tough on crime” policies have left this country with criminal systems riddled with mandatory minimum sentences, sentence enhancements, and an overuse of life sentences that keep people in prison for decades, if not the rest of their lives. 

In Michigan, a habitual sentencing penalty can increase a sentence by 50 percent for up to 20 years. The law mandates that judges consider decades old, unrelated convictions. The result is that thousands of people like Uyeda stay in prison for far much longer than they otherwise would.

In Kimko’s case, this meant that filing a single false police report resulted in a multitude of criminal charges, automatically enhancing her sentence to decades behind bars. 

Similar to other unfair sentencing laws across the country, prosecutors in Michigan are able to selectively choose when to seek this additional punishment, meaning that the state’s habitual sentencing penalty is used inconsistently and unequally across the state. In some counties, like Oakland and Saginaw, the penalty is used in 90 percent of cases in which it is eligible, while counties like Washtenaw use the penalty only 10 percent of the time. Across counties, Black people are more likely to be given the penalty than their white counterparts.

“I had no idea how bad the system was until I lived it,” says Kimko, who served six years behind bars, losing time with her son, who was just 7 years old when she was locked up. “Now, I want to prevent others from going through what I experienced.”

Earlier this year, Kimko shared her story at an ACLU of Michigan press conference in Lansing to show that sentencing reform will not only save taxpayers’ dollars but also keeps communities safe and families together.

At that same press conference, along with a group of bipartisan lawmakers, we announced plans to overhaul Michigan’s sentencing laws.

Thanks to Kimko’s help, the Michigan Senate introduced SB 697, SB 698, and SB 699 earlier this month. These bills allow for judicial discretion in cases similar to Kimko’s and limit the use of the punitive habitual sentencing penalty. 

In passing this bill, Michigan will join bipartisan efforts in states across the country, including California and Oklahoma, to dismantle the cruel, expensive, and ineffective sentence enhancements that are used to unjustly and excessively punish people for simply coming into contact with the criminal legal system more than once.

Michigan’s trio of reform bills sets an example for other states, as they would apply to anyone convicted of a crime in Michigan, regardless of what kind of charge they are currently facing.

After losing her home and belongings during the six years that she was incarcerated, Kimiko and Marshall are starting their ornament collection from scratch. This year, they’ll be choosing an ornament together that represents hope. Kimiko is only one of the thousands across this country unjustly locked behind bars due to outdated sentencing laws. Michigan shows us that the fight to reform those deeply entrenched remnants of the tough on crime era can be won.

Nicole Zayas Fortier, Policy Counsel, ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice,
& Kimberly Buddin-Crawford, Policy Counsel, ACLU of Michigan

When Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) reintroduced the Fair Chance Act earlier this year, he said: “This bill would give individuals who are reentering society from prison a fair chance at truly achieving the American dream.” The Fair Chance Act would ban the box that employers use to ask about arrest and conviction history on job applications. It also requires that federal agencies and contractors subject a prospective employee to a criminal background check only after a conditional job offer is made. 

As such, qualified workers with arrest or conviction records can now compete fairly for employment with the largest employer in the world, the U.S. government.

This week, Rep. Cummings — who until his death in October, was advancing “common sense criminal justice reforms” for Marylanders and the more than 70 million Americans who have criminal histories — dream has been realized with Congress sending the Fair Chance Act to the president’s desk.

In addition to Congressman Cummings, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) led the effort to “ban the box” at the federal level. Our organizations were pleased to rally for this bill’s enactment as part of a bipartisan coalition that included All of Us or None, JustLeadershipUSA, Center for American Progress, and Justice Action Network. 

Gainful employment is critical to a person’s successful reentry to society after incarceration and the single most important predictor of whether or not a person will return to prison. But 75 percent of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed a year after release because of employer discrimination against people with criminal records. For Black people, a criminal record means not getting a job interview 40 percent more often than white people with similar histories. With 650,000 Americans returning to communities from prison each year, employers must eliminate barriers to jobs. 

Now, the federal government will serve as a model for fair chance hiring, along with 35 states, the District of Columbia, and over 150 cities and counties that have ban the box policies. This cohort includes many private sector entities as well, with over 100 companies joining the Fair Chance Pledge issued by the Obama White House, which coincided with federal ban the box regulations implemented under that administration in 2015. The impetus for the Obama administration’s actions was the Fair Chance Act that had first been introduced months before in the 114th Congress.             

Four years later, the Fair Chance Act is now law, standing to benefit more than 700,000 new job applicants every year. Fair Chance is a laudable accomplishment for congressional leaders, like Congressman Cummings, and criminal justice reform advocates, like our organizations, who understand that a criminal history should not deny anyone an opportunity to succeed in our economy. Though our work will continue to advance additional fair chance hiring practices in local and state government and the private sector, this week’s win on Fair Chance is a critical step in the right direction.

Kanya Bennett, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office,
Sakira Cook, Director of the Justice Reform Program, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights,
& Maurice Emsellem, Fair Chance Program Director, National Employment Law Project