Black leaders pledge to keep fighting for Tulsa race riot survivors

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Black leaders are rallying on behalf of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot.<br/><br/>Officials who rallied in Tulsa Sunday likened the elderly survivors' struggle for reparations

Monday, October 31st 2005, 6:19 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Black leaders are rallying on behalf of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot.

Officials who rallied in Tulsa Sunday likened the elderly survivors' struggle for reparations to that of the civil rights movement.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California says elderly survivors have told their stories many times but can't afford to give up.

Most of the survivors were young children when a white mob torched the city's prosperous black business district known as Greenwood.

They sued the city of Tulsa, police and the state in 2003. But lower courts ruled the statute of limitations had run out and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal.

Their attorney, Harvard professor Charles Ogletree, says their testimony will be used to push for federal reparations legislation in Congress.