Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor Dies At 111

Viola Ford Fletcher He was one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma. She spent her final years seeking justice for a deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving black community where she lived as a child. Her family confirmed today that she had died at the age of 111, according to the Associated Press.

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The community mourns the loss of Viola Ford Fletcher

viola grandson, Ike HowardShe said Monday (Nov. 24) that she died surrounded by her family at a Tulsa hospital. She was a woman of strong faith, who raised three children, worked as a welder in a shipyard during World War II and spent decades caring for families as a housekeeper. She did not retire until age 85. Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols She said the city was mourning her loss.

“Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, and yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose,” Nichols said in a statement.

Viola survived the Tulsa race massacre as a child

Viola Ford Fletcher was 7 years old when the two-day attack began in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood on May 31, 1921. The attack came after a local newspaper published a sensational report about a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. As a white mob grew outside the courthouse, black Tulsans who hoped to prevent the man’s lynching began to appear. The white population responded with overwhelming force. White mobs killed hundreds of people and burned and looted homes. It ended up destroying more than 30 apartment buildings in the community known as Black Wall Street.

“I can never forget the charred remains of our once-thriving community, the smoke in the air, and the terrified faces of my neighbors,” Viola wrote in her 2023 memoir, “Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.”

She wrote that when her family left in a horse-drawn carriage, her eyes burned from smoke and ash. She described seeing piles of bodies in the streets and watching a white man shoot a black man in the head, then shoot her family.

Oklahoma Supreme Court declines to pay compensation to survivors

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre went unmentioned for decades. In Oklahoma, larger discussions began when the state formed a commission in 1997 to investigate the violence. Two decades later, the city was looking for ways to help descendants of massacre victims without making direct cash payments. Some living survivors, including Viola, received donations from groups but received no payments from the city or state.

In 2021, Viola Ford Fletcher testified before congress about her experiences during the massacre and its aftermath. her younger brother, Hughes Van EllisAnd another survivor of the massacre Lissie Beningfield RundleShe joined the lawsuit seeking damages. In January 2024, a review by the Ministry of Justice highlighted the scope and impact of the massacre. It concluded that federal prosecution might have been possible a century ago. However, there is no longer a way to file a criminal case.

That same year, in June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit brought by the survivors. The judges said their complaints did not fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance law. Van Ellis died in 2023 at the age of 102.

“As long as we live on, we will continue to shine a light on one of the darkest days in American history,” Viola Ford Fletcher and Rundle said in a statement at the time.

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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengel contributed to this report via the AP Newsroom.