Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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For nearly a century she was denied a voice by a culture of silence. Finally, at the age of 107, Viola Fletcher got a national stage on Wednesday to bear witness to America’s deep history of racial violence.
Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of a massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921 when a white mob attacked the city’s “Black Wall Street”, killing an estimated 300 African Americans while robbing and burning more than 1,200 businesses, homes and churches
She was just seven years old at the time.
For decades the atrocity was actively covered up and wished away. But Fletcher and her 100-year-old brother are seeking reparations and, ahead of the massacre’s centenary, appeared before a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies.
....A third survivor, Lessie Evelyn Benningfield Randle, 106, also testified virtually. She said: “It means a lot to me to finally be able to look at you all in the eye and ask you to do the right thing. I have waited so long for justice.”
Just the fact that there are three survivors still living is mind blowing.
Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of a massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921 when a white mob attacked the city’s “Black Wall Street”, killing an estimated 300 African Americans while robbing and burning more than 1,200 businesses, homes and churches
She was just seven years old at the time.
For decades the atrocity was actively covered up and wished away. But Fletcher and her 100-year-old brother are seeking reparations and, ahead of the massacre’s centenary, appeared before a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies.
....A third survivor, Lessie Evelyn Benningfield Randle, 106, also testified virtually. She said: “It means a lot to me to finally be able to look at you all in the eye and ask you to do the right thing. I have waited so long for justice.”
âI am seeking justiceâ: Tulsa massacre survivor, 107, testifies to US Congress
Viola Fletcher is the oldest survivor of the racist attack on the city’s ‘Black Wall Street’ in 1921 that left up to 300 African Americans dead
www.theguardian.com
Just the fact that there are three survivors still living is mind blowing.