Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has died on the age of 111, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols introduced Monday.
“At the moment, our metropolis mourns the lack of Mom Viola Fletcher – a survivor of one of many darkest chapters in our metropolis’s historical past. Mom Fletcher endured greater than anybody ought to, but she spent her life lighting a path ahead with objective,” Nichols stated on social media.
“Mom Fletcher carried 111 years of fact, resilience, and beauty and was a reminder of how far we have come and the way far we should nonetheless go,” he stated. “She by no means stopped advocating for justice for the survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Bloodbath, and I hope all of us can carry ahead her legacy with the braveness and conviction she modeled every single day of her life.”
Fletcher, a grandmother of six, told CBS News in a 2021 interview that she thought concerning the bloodbath every single day.
“It will likely be one thing I am going to always remember,” she stated.
Tulsa’s Greenwood District, which was referred to as “Black Wall Road,” was destroyed by a White mob after a Black man was accused of assaulting a White lady. A minimum of 300 Black residents have been killed, and hundreds have been left homeless following the daylong bloodbath wherein White rioters attacked Black residents, looted companies and burned buildings.
The Nationwide Guard was introduced in, imposing martial regulation and serving to to spherical up and imprison Black individuals. Greater than 35 blocks have been charred and 6,000 individuals have been held in detention — some for as much as eight days, based on the Tulsa Historic Society and Museum.
“We had associates and performed outdoors and [would] go to with neighbors and was completely happy there with our mother and father. Simply beloved being there,” Fletcher informed CBS Information, recalling Greenwood earlier than the bloodbath.
Lessie Benningfield Randle, 111, is now the one survivor of the Tulsa Bloodbath.
