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Viola Ford Fletcher, who arsenic 1 of the past survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre successful Oklahoma spent her aboriginal years seeking justness for the deadly onslaught by a achromatic mob connected the thriving Black assemblage wherever she lived arsenic a child, has died. She was 111.
Her grandson Ike Howard said connected Monday (November 24, 2025) that she died surrounded by household astatine a Tulsa hospital. Sustained by a beardown faith, she raised 3 children, worked arsenic a welder successful a shipyard during World War II and spent decades caring for families arsenic a housekeeper.
She was 7 erstwhile the two-day onslaught began connected Tulsa’s Greenwood territory connected May 31, 1921, aft a section paper published a sensationalised study astir a Black antheral accused of assaulting a achromatic woman. As a achromatic mob grew extracurricular the courthouse, Black Tulsans with guns who hoped to forestall the man’s lynching began showing up. White residents responded with overwhelming force. Hundreds of radical were killed and homes were burned and looted, leaving implicit 30 metropolis blocks decimated successful the prosperous assemblage known arsenic Black Wall Street.
“I could ne'er hide the charred remains of our once-thriving community, the fume billowing successful the air, and the terror-stricken faces of my neighbors,” she wrote successful her 2023 memoir, “Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.”
As her household near successful a horse-drawn buggy, her eyes burned from the fume and ash, she wrote. She described seeing piles of bodies successful the streets and watching arsenic a achromatic antheral changeable a Black antheral successful the head, past fired toward her family.
She told The Associated Press in an interrogation the twelvemonth her memoir was published that fearfulness of reprisals influenced her years of near-silence astir the massacre. She wrote the publication with Howard, her grandson, who said helium had to transportation her to archer her story.
“We don’t privation past to repetition itself truthful we bash request to amended radical astir what happened and effort to get radical to recognize wherefore you request to beryllium made whole, wherefore you request to beryllium repaired,” Howard told the AP in 2024. “The generational wealthiness that was lost, the home, each the belongings, everything was mislaid successful 1 night.”
The onslaught went mostly unremembered for decades. In Oklahoma, wider discussions began erstwhile the authorities formed a committee successful 1997 to analyse the violence.
Fletcher, who successful 2021 testified earlier Congress astir what she went through, joined her younger brother, Hughes Van Ellis, and different massacre survivor, Lessie Benningfield Randle, successful a suit seeking reparations. The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed it successful June 2024, saying their grievances did not autumn wrong the scope of the state’s nationalist nuisance statute.
“For arsenic agelong arsenic we stay successful this lifetime, we volition proceed to radiance a airy connected 1 of the darkest days successful American history,” Fletcher and Randle said successful a connection astatine the time. Van Ellis had died a twelvemonth earlier, astatine the property of 102.
A Justice Department review, launched nether the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and released successful January 2024, outlined the massacre’s scope and impact. It concluded that national prosecution whitethorn person been imaginable a period ago, but determination was nary longer an avenue to bring a transgression case.
The metropolis has been looking for ways to assistance descendants of the massacre’s victims without giving nonstop currency payments. Some of the past surviving survivors, including Fletcher, received donations from groups but person not received immoderate payments from the metropolis oregon state.
Fletcher, calved successful Oklahoma connected May 10, 1914, spent astir of her aboriginal years successful Greenwood. It was an oasis for Black radical during segregation, she wrote successful her memoir. Her household had a bully home, she said, and the assemblage had everything from doctors to market stores to restaurants and banks.
Forced to fly during the massacre, her household became nomadic, surviving retired of a structure arsenic they worked successful the fields arsenic sharecroppers. She didn’t decorativeness schoolhouse beyond the 4th grade.
At the property of 16, she returned to Tulsa, wherever she got a occupation cleaning and creating model displays successful a section store, she wrote successful her memoir. She past met Robert Fletcher, and they joined and moved to California. During World War II, she worked successful a Los Angeles shipyard arsenic a welder, she wrote.
She yet near her husband, who was physically abusive, and gave commencement to their son, Robert Ford Fletcher, she wrote. Longing to beryllium person to her family, she returned to Oklahoma and settled northbound of Tulsa successful Bartlesville.
Fletcher wrote that her religion and the close-knit Black assemblage gave her the enactment she needed to rise her children. She had different son, James Edward Ford, and a daughter, Debra Stein Ford, from different relationships.
She worked for decades arsenic a housekeeper, doing everything successful those homes from cooking to cleaning to caring for children, Howard said. She worked until she was 85.
She yet returned to Tulsa to live. Howard said his grandma hoped the determination would assistance successful her combat for justice.
Howard said the absorption his grandma got erstwhile she started speaking retired was therapeutic for her.
“This full process has been helpful,” Howard said.
