‘Proud to be White!’ Oklahoma Bank Censured for Alleged Redlining in Site of 1923 Tulsa Race Massacre

"Proud to be White!" was the subject line of an email a local branch manager at the American Bank of Oklahoma sent to a group of colleagues.

Littered with "racial slurs, including the N word," the email went on to describe "ghettos" as dangerous places to live.

Another email complained of "Multiculturalism," saying it was killing the English language and American way of life. “IF YOU THINK MEXICANS AND MUSLIMS AND OTHER FORIEGNERS [sp] WILL EVENTUALLY FIT RIGHT IN THEN YOU ARE AS BIG A PART OF THE PROBLEM AS THEY ARE," the email read.

Other emails between bank executives and loan officers blamed rising crime rates and violence in schools on minorities. One email from a bank manager to an executive blamed gang violence and economic hardship on "Black culture." It suggested that if Blacks left the U.S., poverty rates, the prison population, welfare recipients and gangs would decline, "while average SAT scores and average income would increase," the DOJ complaint says.

The emails were some of evidence the Justice Department used in its lending discrimination complaint against the Oklahoma bank, which allegedly redlined around some of the same neighborhoods that suffered through the Tulsa race massacre just over 100 years ago.

The bank agreed Tuesday to spend at least $1.15 million on loan subsidies and community outreach to Black and Hispanic borrowers as part of a consent order to settle civil discrimination charges, DOJ said.

“The painful history of Tulsa makes this agreement particularly poignant because the redlined areas include historically Black neighborhoods that have endured the legacy of racial violence and the continuing effects of segregation and discrimination,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement announcing the settlement.

DOJ launched an initiative to combat redlining in late 2021. Since then, it's pursued eight redlining cases, securing $89 million in financing for victims of lending discrimination, it said.

DOJ said all of the banks offices were in neighborhoods that were majority-white and that the bank's service area excluded all majority-Black and Hispanic census tracts in the metropolitan area. The end result was a failure to provide mortgage lending services to neighborhoods that were predominantly Black and Hispanic around Tulsa from 2017 through 2021, the Justice Department said.

“American Bank of Oklahoma engaged in the illegal practice of redlining and failed to serve the diverse members of our Tulsa community as they attempted to purchase homes,” U.S. Attorney Clinton Johnson for the Northern District of Oklahoma said in the statement. He said those practices are difficult to identify and prosecute.

In a statement, the bank said it goes the "extra mile" for its customers. It didn't address the allegations in the complaint, saying: "It is with deep concern that we note the Justice Department’s decision to reference this distressing historical event in its complaint against our bank, established a mere 25 years ago."

Noting it was a small community bank, it added: "Despite our limitations, we remain resolute in our commitment to expand lending initiatives and foster financial inclusivity for the residents of Tulsa."