Oldest survivor of US race massacre dies at 111

The oldest living survivor of the Tulsa race massacre, one of the most horrific instances of racial violence in United States history, has passed away at the age of 111, according to a local official on Tuesday.

Viola Fletcher was a child in 1921 when her Black community in Greenwood, Oklahoma, was set ablaze by white mobs. Historians estimate that as many as 300 African American residents lost their lives.

"Today, our city grieves the passing of Mother Viola Fletcher — a survivor of one of the darkest periods in our city’s past," stated Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols.

"Fletcher embodied 111 years of truth, resilience, and grace, serving as a reminder of how far we have come and the distance we still need to travel."

The violence erupted after a group of Black men went to the local courthouse on May 31, 1921, to defend a young African American man accused of assaulting a white woman.

They encountered an enraged white mob and retreated to Greenwood when gunfire erupted.

White men looted and set fire to the neighborhood, which was once one of America’s most prosperous Black communities, known for its affluence as Black Wall Street, at dawn the following day.

Much of the area was reduced to ashes, buildings were demolished, and businesses were plundered. Thousands were left without homes.

Fletcher, who left elementary school and endured decades of poverty, primarily working as a housekeeper for white families, later remarked that she had "lived through the massacre every day" for the last century.

Still hear the screams
She was among the survivors of the massacre who testified before Congress a century later about the atrocities she witnessed, advocating for 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," Fletcher recounted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in 2021.

"Our nation may choose to forget this history, but I cannot. I will not, and neither will other survivors, nor will our descendants," she asserted.

The commission concluded that Tulsa authorities themselves had armed some of the white rioters.

It also recommended that Greenwood residents and their descendants be compensated, but the effort failed.