(AURN News) — Viola Ford Fletcher — the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — has died at 111, according to CNN. Known widely as “Mother Fletcher,” she became a powerful voice for justice in her later years, sharing vivid memories of the destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, once known as Black Wall Street. Fletcher and other survivors pursued a historic lawsuit against the city, arguing that Tulsa bore responsibility for the massacre and its lasting impact.
Born in 1913, Fletcher was just 7 when a white mob burned 35 blocks of Greenwood, killing and terrorizing Black residents. She told CNN she “never got over” the trauma of that night. Her passing leaves Lessie Benningfield Randle, also 111, as the last known survivor of the massacre.
Fletcher’s death comes as efforts to secure reparations continue more than a century after the attack, a push made more urgent by the dwindling number of living survivors.
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