Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has passed away. She was 111 years old.
Ike Howard, Fletcher’s grandson, confirmed to CNN that she passed on Monday, Nov. 24, surrounded by her family.
“She had a beautiful smile on her face,” Howard said. “And she loved life, she loved people.”
Known as “Mother Fletcher,” she was just 7 when a two-day attack led by a white mob began in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood on May 31, 1921. More than 300 Black people were killed, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Additionally, thirty-five city blocks were burned to the ground, totally destroying the city’s Black community.
“Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose,” Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols told the AP.
Born on May 10, 1914, she and her family fled their home, losing everything but the clothes on their backs. Experiencing the race riot left her with persistent trauma, including flashbacks.
As a result of the massacre, her family was impoverished. Fletcher worked as an assistant welder in shipyards in California during World War II and later worked cleaning houses in Oklahoma. She retired at the age of 85.
Fletcher became a reparations advocate for survivors of the Tulsa massacre and their families. In 2021, at the age of 107, she testified before the U.S. Congress about the need for reparations. She was joined by her brother, Hughes Van Ellis, and another survivor. She detailed the horrors she witnessed.
“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home… I still see Black men being shot,” she testified “Black bodies lying in the street.”
In June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit from the survivors, “arguing they should be compensated by the city for damages.”
Fletcher shared her experiences in her 2023 memoir, Don’t Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre In Her Own Words.