"She was seven years old when the two-day attack began on Tulsa's Greenwood district on 31 May 1921 after a local newspaper published a sensationalized report about a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman. As a white mob grew outside the courthouse, Black Tulsans with guns who hoped to prevent the man's lynching began showing up. White residents responded with overwhelming force."
"I could never forget the charred remains of our once-thriving community, the smoke billowing in the air, and the terror-stricken faces of my neighbors, she wrote in her 2023 memoir, Don't Let Them Bury My Story. As her family left in a horse-drawn buggy, her eyes burned from the smoke and ash, she wrote. She described seeing piles of bodies in the streets and watching as a white man shot a Black man in the head, then fired toward her family."
Viola Ford Fletcher died at age 111 in a Tulsa hospital, surrounded by family. Sustained by strong faith, she raised three children, worked as a welder in a shipyard during World War II and spent decades caring for families as a housekeeper. She spent later years seeking justice for the deadly 1921 attack on Greenwood. She was seven when the two-day massacre began on May 31, 1921 after a sensationalized newspaper report; a white mob confronted Black residents, hundreds were killed and about 35 city blocks of prosperous Black Wall Street were decimated. The city mourned her loss.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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