Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has died at the age of 111, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols announced Monday.
“Today, our city mourns the loss of Mother Viola Fletcher – a survivor of one of the darkest chapters in our city’s history. Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose,” Nichols said on social media.
“Mother Fletcher carried 111 years of truth, resilience, and grace and was a reminder of how far we’ve come and how far we must still go,” he said. “She never stopped advocating for justice for the survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and I hope we all can carry forward her legacy with the courage and conviction she modeled every day of her life.”
Fletcher, a grandmother of six who had been living in North Texas, told CBS News in a 2021 interview that she thought about the massacre every day.
“It will be something I’ll never forget,” she said.
Tulsa’s Greenwood District, which was known as “Black Wall Street,” was destroyed by a White mob after a Black man was accused of assaulting a White woman. At least 300 Black residents were killed, and thousands were left homeless following the daylong massacre in which White rioters attacked Black residents, looted businesses and burned buildings.
The National Guard was brought in, imposing martial law and helping to round up and imprison Black people. More than 35 blocks were charred and 6,000 people were held in detention — some for up to eight days, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.
“We had friends and played outside and [would] visit with neighbors and was happy there with our parents. Just loved being there,” Fletcher told CBS News, recalling Greenwood before the massacre.
Lessie Benningfield Randle, who turned 111 earlier this month, is now the only survivor of the Tulsa Massacre.
Randle, Fletcher and her brother Hughes Van Ellis, who died in 2023, were among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the city and county of Tulsa in 2020 seeking reparations for the massacre.
They testified before Congress about the violent mob’s actions 100 years after the riot.
“I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams,” Fletcher told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in 2021.
The city of Tulsa has argued it should not be forced to pay anything because today’s residents had nothing to do with what happened more than a century ago.
With none of the perpetrators having ever been prosecuted for their crimes, descendants of survivors and human rights activists have long called for reparations for the continued damage done to their Oklahoma community.
But some form of payment could soon be sent out.
Nichols, who became the city’s first Black mayor last year, unveiled in June a $105 million package to commemorate the first Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day. The “Road to Repair” plan aims to address socioeconomic and health disparities stemming from the massacre, Nichols told The New York Times.
SOURCE: cbsnews.com