Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, died at 111 years old Monday, her grandson Ike Howard confirmed.
“She had a beautiful smile on her face,” Howard told CNN. “She loved life, she loved people.”
Fletcher sat with CNN multiple times for interviews in recent years as she and other living survivors pursued a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa and other related departments, alleging they were complicit in the 1921 massacre and that its effects were still being felt today.
The events leading up to the massacre began on May 30, 1921, when Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoe shiner, ran from an elevator in a downtown building after the elevator’s teen operator let out a scream. Rumors of a rape then circulated, Rowland was arrested, and White Tulsans formed a lynch mob.
Black Tulsans arrived at the jail to defend Rowland, scuffles ensued, a gun went off, and as then-Sheriff William McCullough told Literary Digest, “All hell broke loose.”
The mob laid waste to about 35 blocks within 16 hours, arresting thousands of Black residents, while robbing, beating and killing others. Historic photos show entire blocks gutted by flame and Black people lying in the street.
Exacerbating matters were insurance companies that denied many claims for what today would be tens of millions of dollars in property damage, including the destruction of two Black hospitals and 1,256 residences, according to the Greenwood Cultural Center.
Fletcher told CNN she “never got over” what she experienced that day and still remembers “people getting killed, houses, property, schools, churches, and stores getting destroyed with fire.”
“It just stays with me, you know, just the fear. I have lived in Tulsa since but I don’t sleep all night living there.”
In June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit arguing the remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre should be compensated by the city for damages, dealing a blow to their ongoing fight for reparations more than 100 years after the attack.
Fletcher’s brother Hughes Van Ellis, also a survivor, died in October 2023 at 102 years old.
CNN’s Abby Phillips and Yon Pomrenze contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
