The oldest known survivor of the Tulsa race massacre—one of the most brutal acts of racist violence in US history—has passed away at the age of 111, a local official confirmed on Tuesday.
Viola Fletcher was only a young girl in 1921 when white mobs destroyed her Black community of Greenwood in Oklahoma. Historians estimate that as many as 300 Black residents were killed during the two-day attack.
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols announced her death in a statement, saying, “Today, our city mourns the loss of Mother Viola Fletcher — a survivor of one of the darkest chapters in our city’s history.” He added, “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.”
The massacre erupted on May 31, 1921, after a group of Black men went to the courthouse to protect a young African American accused of assaulting a white woman. They were confronted by an angry white mob and retreated to Greenwood after shots rang out.
At dawn the following day, white rioters stormed the district—then one of the most prosperous Black communities in America, widely known as Black Wall Street—setting fire to homes and businesses, looting properties, and leaving thousands homeless.
Fletcher endured decades of hardship afterward, dropping out of school and working mostly as a housekeeper for white families. She often recounted that she had “lived through the massacre every day” since it happened.
She was among the survivors who testified before Congress 100 years later, vividly recalling the horror and demanding reparations. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street… I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear the screams,” she told lawmakers during a 2021 House Judiciary Committee hearing.
“Our country may forget this history, but I cannot. I will not, and other survivors do not, and our descendants do not,” she added.
A state commission later found that Tulsa authorities had supplied weapons to some of the white attackers. The commission recommended compensation for Greenwood survivors and descendants, but the effort did not succeed.
In 2021, President Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to publicly commemorate the massacre, and Tulsa officials have since begun exhuming mass graves believed to contain victims’ remains.
The only surviving witness now is Lessie Evelyn Benningfield, also 111 years old, but six months younger than Fletcher.
The tragedy remains central to America’s ongoing reckoning with racism—an issue reignited in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
AFP
Advertisement
