Fletcher Was One of Two Living Survivors of the 1921 Massacre, Alongside Lessie Benningfield Randle
Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and one of the last living witnesses to the destruction of Greenwood’s Black Wall Street, has died at 111.
Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols confirmed her passing, calling her “a survivor of one of the darkest chapters in our city’s history” and someone who “endured more than anyone should.” He added that Fletcher carried “111 years of truth, resilience, and grace” and never stopped urging Tulsa and the country to confront what happened in 1921.
Fletcher spent her final years in North Texas, but she never let go of Greenwood or the memories that shaped her life. In a 2021 CBS interview marking the massacre’s centennial, she said the attack on the community “will be something I’ll never forget,” recalling how a white mob stormed the neighborhood after a Black teenager was accused of assaulting a white woman.
Over two days, beginning May 31, 1921, rioters burned more than 35 blocks, killed up to 300 Black residents, displaced thousands, and looted Black-owned homes and businesses. At one point, biplanes dropped bombs on residences, marking what historians consider the first aerial bombing of a U.S. city. The National Guard detained roughly 6,000 Black residents as the violence unfolded.
Alongside her younger brother, Hughes Van Ellis, who died in 2023, and fellow survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle, Fletcher became a central voice in the push for justice. The three filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the city of Tulsa and Tulsa County seeking reparations for the destruction of their community. In 2021, they testified before Congress, detailing the terror they lived through as children and the lifelong consequences that followed. Their accounts reignited national attention on the massacre and renewed calls for restitution.
Lessie Benningfield Randle, who turned 111 earlier this month, is now the only living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Tulsa continues to confront the legacy of the massacre more than a century later. Fletcher’s death closes another chapter of living memory, leaving behind a legacy built on truth-telling, resilience, and a refusal to let the country look away from its history.
