Mother Fletcher and the Pursuit of Justice
By Burju Perez
On November 24, 2025 the world lost a hero and a giant. Viola Ford Fletcher, affectionately known as "Mother Fletcher" was the oldest known living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and became a powerful symbol in the long-delayed quest for reparations and justice. Her life, spanning 111 years, was defined by the traumatic events she witnessed as a child and her eventual, courageous decision to break a century of silence to ensure the world would not bury the truth of the destruction of the thriving Black community known as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Witness to Atrocity: The Tulsa Race Massacre
Born in Comanche, Oklahoma, in 1914, Viola Ford and her family, who had previously been sharecroppers, moved to the prosperous Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa. At the time of the massacre, she was seven years old, living with her parents and seven siblings. The family attended St. Andrew, a Black Baptist church. The Greenwood district was described by Fletcher as an "oasis for Black people during segregation" .
The two day attack began on May 31, 1921, after a local newspaper published a sensationalized report (read: lies) concerning a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman. As a white mob grew, Black Tulsans who attempted to prevent the man’s lynching were met with overwhelming force from white residents. Fletcher was asleep when the violence began, only to be woken by her mother and told they had to flee immediately.
The massacre resulted in the deaths of up to 300 Black people and the decimation of over 30 city blocks, leaving an estimated 9,000 Black people homeless. Her family lost everything but the clothes they were wearing. Recounting the terror in her 2023 memoir, Don't Let Them Bury My Story, co-authored with her grandson Ike Howard, Fletcher wrote, “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 described seeing piles of bodies in the streets and watching a white man shoot a Black man in the head. The profound trauma was so severe that Fletcher reportedly still slept sitting up on her couch with the lights on for decades after the white terror. Fear of reprisals compelled her and other survivors into years of near-silence about the massacre.
Personal Life and Enduring Resilience
The aftermath of the massacre forced Fletcher’s family to flee and return to life as sharecroppers, living in a tent and moving from farm to farm. This severe hardship ended her formal education after the fourth grade.
In 1932, at the age of 18, Viola married Robert Fletcher and moved with him to California, where she worked as an assistant welder in shipyards during World War II. She left her husband due to physical abuse shortly before the birth of her first son, Robert Ford Fletcher. She later had another son, James Edward Ford, and a daughter, Debra Stein Ford. After World War II, she returned to Oklahoma, settling in Bartlesville, just north of Tulsa, where she raised her three children by herself. She worked for decades as a housekeeper, caring for families until she retired at the age of 85. Fletcher moved back to Tulsa later in life, a move her grandson suggested was driven by her hope for justice.
In August 2021, on the centennial of the massacre, she and her brother, Hughes Van Ellis, visited Ghana, where they met with President Nana Akufo-Addo. They were crowned a queen mother and granted Ghanaian citizenship, receiving names that translated to "Somebody who is strong" and "Somebody who stands the test of time."
The Fight for Reparations
Despite the decades of silence influenced by fear, Fletcher became a prominent advocate for reparations in her later years. She joined her younger brother, Hughes Van Ellis, and another survivor, Lessie Benningfield Randle, in a 2020 lawsuit against the City of Tulsa and other government entities. The suit sought reparations, arguing that the consequences of the massacre constituted an ongoing public nuisance and unjust enrichment, thereby circumventing issues with the state's statute of limitations.
Fletcher took her fight to the national stage. In May 2021, she testified before the U.S. Congress, demanding reparations and recalling the terror: “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I live through the massacre every day.” Her testimony, along with that of her co-plaintiffs, was a significant moment in the national dialogue on the massacre.
Despite their relentless pursuit, the legal battle faced significant hurdles. The first being trying to hold a racist country responsible for the terrorism it has committed. A Tulsa County District Judge dismissed the suit in July 2023, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ultimately dismissed the case in June 2024, ruling that their grievances did not fall within the scope of the state's public nuisance statute and characterizing the claims as policy concerns.
Though their legal avenues were exhausted in the state courts, Fletcher left a towering legacy. Her memoir, her congressional testimony, and her persistence ensured that the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre would be remembered and that the call for repair would continue. In 2022, she and the other survivors did receive a $1 million donation from a New York philanthropist, Ed Mitzen, though they did not receive any government payments from the city or state. Her life’s final chapter was dedicated to lighting a path toward truth and justice, forcing the nation to reckon with one of its darkest chapters. She was a giant among us. Now, as an ancestor, may she rest in power and peace.
Written by Tamara Rose
Recourses:
Don’t let them bury my story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Massacre In Her Own Words. By Viola Ford Fletcher and Ike Howard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dkUb16tR6I
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/viola-ford-fletcher-one-of-the-last-survivors-of-the-tulsa-race-massacre-dies-at-age-111#:~:text=She%20was%207%20when%20the,of%20assaulting%20a%20white%20woman.
https://theemancipator.org/2024/05/21/topics/reparations/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-tulsa-race-massacre-reparations-trial/#:~:text=More%20than%20150%20local%20businesses,These%20bare%20facts%20are%20known.
If you would like to purchase Mother Fletcher’s book, here is a link to a Black owned bookstore in Roxbury, MA. Unfortunately, the only Black owned bookstore in Tulsa closed in September 2025 due to “the change in political climate.”
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