Viola Ford Fletcher was one of many final survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Bloodbath in Oklahoma. She spent her later years in search of justice for the lethal assault by a white mob on the thriving Black neighborhood the place she lived as a toddler. Right this moment, her household confirmed her passing on the age of 111, per the Related Press.
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Neighborhood Mourns The Loss Of Viola Ford Fletcher
Viola’s grandson, Ike Howard, stated Monday (November 24) that she died surrounded by household at a Tulsa hospital. She was a girl of sturdy religion who raised three youngsters, labored as a welder in a shipyard throughout World Battle II and spent many years caring for households as a housekeeper. She didn’t retire till age 85. Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols stated town was mourning her loss.
“Mom Fletcher endured greater than anybody ought to, but she spent her life lighting a path ahead with objective,” Nichols stated in an announcement.
Viola Survived The Tulsa Race Bloodbath As A Little one
Viola Ford Fletcher was 7 years outdated when the two-day assault started on Tulsa’s Greenwood district on Could 31, 1921. The assault got here after a neighborhood newspaper revealed a sensationalized report a couple of Black man accused of assaulting a white lady. As a white mob grew outdoors the courthouse, Black Tulsans with weapons who hoped to forestall the person’s lynching started displaying up. White residents responded with overwhelming power. White mobs killed tons of of individuals and burned and looted properties. Over 30 metropolis blocks in the neighborhood generally known as Black Wall Avenue ended up destroyed.
“I may always remember the charred stays of our once-thriving neighborhood, the smoke billowing within the air, and the terror-stricken faces of my neighbors,” Viola wrote in her 2023 memoir, ‘Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.’
As her household left in a horse-drawn buggy, her eyes burned from the smoke and ash, she wrote. She described seeing piles of our bodies within the streets and watching as a white man shot a Black man within the head, then fired towards her household.
Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom Denies Reparations To Survivors
The 1921 Tulsa Race Bloodbath just about went unremembered for many years. In Oklahoma, larger discussions started when the state shaped a fee in 1997 to analyze the violence. Quick-forward 20 years—town has been in search of methods to assist descendants of the bloodbath’s victims with out giving direct money funds. A few of the final residing survivors, together with Viola, obtained donations from teams however haven’t obtained any funds from town or state.
In 2021, Viola Ford Fletcher testified earlier than Congress about her expertise through the bloodbath and aftermath. Her youthful brother, Hughes Van Ellis, and one other bloodbath survivor, Lessie Benningfield Randle, joined her within the lawsuit in search of reparations. In January 2024, a Justice Division evaluate highlighted the bloodbath’s scope and impression. It concluded that federal prosecution might have been potential a century in the past. Nevertheless, there was now not an avenue to convey a prison case.
That very same 12 months, in June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom dismissed the survivors’ lawsuit. The justices stated their grievances didn’t fall throughout the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute. Van Ellis had handed away in 2023 on the age of 102.
“For so long as we stay on this lifetime, we’ll proceed to shine a light-weight on one of many darkest days in American historical past,” Viola Ford Fletcher and Randle stated in an announcement on the time.
RELATED: The First Sufferer Of The 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma Race Bloodbath Has Been Recognized From Over 100 Graves Found
Related Press author Jamie Stengle contributed to this report by way of AP Newsroom.
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