#viola fletcher

Viola “Mother” Fletcher, the oldest known living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, has passed away.

Mother Fletcher was a living monument to our history, our grief, and our fight. A century after the flames of Greenwood, she stood before Congress and demanded reparations, recognition, and repair.

She spent her life reminding America of the truth it tried to forget and urging us to build a future worthy of the lives lost and the legacy she protected.

Viola Ford Fletcher, known as “Mother Fletcher,” the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, passed away Monday at 111, her grandson Ike Howard confirmed.

“She had a beautiful smile on her face,” Howard told CNN. “She loved life, she loved people.”

Fletcher’s testimony and life bore witness to one of the deadliest acts of racial violence in U.S. history, when a white mob destroyed 35 blocks of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, killing and displacing thousands of Black residents.

Her brother, Hughes Van Ellis, also a survivor, died in 2023 at 102. Fletcher spent her life in Tulsa, working as a ship welder during WWII and later as a maid, never receiving reparations for the devastation that left her family impoverished.

Her passing marks the end of a living link to the massacre, but her voice and legacy continue to call for justice.

Lessie Benningfield Randle, 111, is now the only living survivor of the massacre.

Viola Fletcher.

Triumphant.

Gracious.

Courageous.

Thank you.

"I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot." – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

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.

~ Viola Fletcher (1914-2025)

Qasim Rashid at Let's Address This:

Last summer I had the opportunity to visit the location of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I did not learn of the Tulsa Race Massacre until I was in law school. It was not taught in schools. Today, as Project 2025 increases its death grip on public education, mentions of white supremacist terrorism against Black and brown people continue to face erasure from the history books.

In the face of such suppression in this country, one person who defied the odds and refused to remain silent was Viola Fletcher. Born in Comanche, Oklahoma on May 10, 1914, and died on November 24, 2025 in Comanche, Oklahoma, Ms. Fletcher was the oldest known living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre. She fought valiantly throughout her life, facing horrific opposition from city and state authorities in her attempts to bring truth to light, with no help from the federal government. In fact, it wasn’t until January 10, 2025 that the Federal Government finally published a report documenting the atrocities that took place on Black Tulsa residents on those horrid days. As you read through this detailed review of what she lived through in one of the worst incidents of mass racial violence in American history, and the legacy she leaves behind today–I invite you to think about the disinformation and violence that was used to spread hate back then, and how it’s still employed today. This should serve as a reminder of the work that remains before us, and the obligation each of us have to play our part to right these systemic wrongs. 

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What They Don’t Teach About Tulsa

Did you know that the first time terrorists used planes to attack Americans wasn’t on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbor? It was during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 when white supremacists flew “a dozen planes to drop turpentine or nitroglycerin bombs & men shot from planes.” This year, May 31 and June 1 marked the 104-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. It stands as one of the most devastating instances of racial terror in this country, and also one of the most underreported and underrecognized. Even now, 104 years later, the Tulsa Race Massacre has resulted in zero consequences for the culprits who ignited the massacre. Sadly, this lack of accountability for racial violence has been the norm for the entirety of American history. It is no wonder that today, every intelligence agency points to white supremacy terrorism as the greatest threat to American national security today.

[...]

What Happened That Day?

The Tulsa Massacre murdered as many as 300 Black people, destroyed 35 Black-owned city blocks, hospitalized 800 Black people, interned 8,000 Black people in homeless shelters, and displaced more than 10,000 Black people from their homes. Yet, not a single culprit was brought to justice, no reparations were ever paid, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court horrifyingly rejected all civil suits and protected all insurance companies from having to pay out claims. 

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Conclusion

Viola Fletcher’s 111 years on this Earth are a living indictment of America’s refusal to confront its own violence. She carried, in her memory and in her testimony, the full truth of Tulsa—what was taken, what was destroyed, and what this nation still refuses to reconcile. Ms. Fletcher was not just a survivor; she was a historian, a witness, and a moral compass who spent a century demanding that this country tell the truth about itself. Now she passes the torch. Her passing is not the end of the Tulsa story. It is a reminder that we now inherit her fight. We owe it to her—to her courage, her persistence, her unwavering clarity—to ensure Tulsa is neither forgotten nor sanitized. Justice sadly did not arrive in her lifetime, but it must in ours.

Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Biden and Trump, you all failed her. The city of Tulsa, you failed her. The state of Oklahoma, you failed her.

Failed her and the other survivors. You are failing and have failed.

One survivor remains as of now, Ms. Lessie Benningfield Randle and she just turned 111 some weeks ago. And each of you keep failing her deliberately.

Our elders have lived a living legacy of 100+ years…the oldest, ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN years on this earth to demand their reparative justice from the atrocity that happened over a century ago that they miraculously survived when she was seven…they all and still are demanded/demanding till their last breath for neither president to sign an executive order or do anything tangible and every single one of you did absolutely NOTHING!

Our elders saw all these presidents and administrations sign EOs and pass bills and make law for monetary justice for so many other groups. Sign EOs for groups that weren’t even oppressed by our government of this land. You help the Holocaust victims and their descendants, you continue to help the native white Americans annually, you are still aiding Japanese-Americans, aiding the foreign country of Ukraine for years now and the list goes on and all the Tulsa survivors got was symbolic tweets and gestures, visits and memos, pictures, plaques — all inconsiderate, inconsequential, performative acts.

It’s not even shameful it’s deplorable. It’s pathetic.

Obama…There’s nothing more miserable than the time he held of not doing anything for Ms. Fletcher, Ms. Randle or Mr. Ellis (who is Ms. Fletcher’s brother).

And it is absolutely nothing more miserable than his social media post to mention her passing. Even his tweet was untethered to reality. That’s on purpose. That tweet was mocking her and her descendants. Nothing of it was honorable and genuine or true mourning of her. She did not simply “share” her story so that we’d never forget it — she retold her lived traumatic, survival experience to be repaired by you and others. Her survival wasn’t some “lifelong work” so you and your spouse can reminisce about it nor was her survival “advancing civil rights” when you didn’t even do right by her. They endured a genocide and to him, he’s treating it like mere entertainment.

Despicable cowardice treachery. It’s profane.

It’s disgusting.

For 111 years, NO ONE did anything for her. It really feels sacrilegious. This elder survived a massacre, endured and survived the aftermath of the massacre when the survivors were forced into concentration/internment camps, wars, pandemics, segregation, tragedies, terrorist attacks (their own over a century ago), disasters and natural disasters and witnessed nonwhite officials hold the highest of office…both a Black African president and a minority “poc” woman VP they lived to see have titles in their country’s highest office…and for over a CENTURY, our country ignored her. Both President Obama and Vice President Harris ignored them. Didn’t even have the courage to acknowledge her until her passing.

She, both the other survivors defied the whole “No one was alive when slavery happened/the massacre happened”. THEY LIVED! The massacre didn’t kill them! They were/are ALL ALIVE!

Everyone who did nothing for them with high political positions…May their soulful spirits be perpetual reminders that torture every single one of you that denied, dismissed and did nothing for them.