Overview

Viola Ford Fletcher (born January 18; 1914) is the oldest known living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre; one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history. She was seven years old when a white mob attacked the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood (known as "Black Wall Street") in Tulsa; Oklahoma; over two days beginning on May 31; 1921. The mob; aided by local law enforcement and armed with weapons and incendiary devices; destroyed approximately 35 blocks of the Greenwood District; killed an estimated 100 to 300 Black residents; and left over 10;000 homeless. Fletcher recalls being awakened by her parents and fleeing on foot as her neighborhood burned; stepping over dead bodies in the streets. For decades; the massacre was deliberately erased from official history; excluded from Oklahoma history textbooks and public discourse. Fletcher testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution; Civil Rights; and Civil Liberties on May 19; 2021; at age 107; telling Congress: "I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. 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." She and fellow survivors Lessie Benningfield Randle and Hughes Van Ellis filed a lawsuit seeking reparations; which was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2023; a decision widely condemned by civil rights organizations.

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2 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports