Viola Ford Fletcher, one of the last 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, dies age 111

DALLAS -- Viola Ford Fletcher, who as one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child, has died. “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.” At the age of 16, she returned to Tulsa, where she got a job cleaning and creating window displays in a department store, she wrote in her memoir.

Author: JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press

---