Viola Ford Fletcher, at 110 years old, has made history as the oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Recently, she exercised her right to vote in Oklahoma, casting her ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris. Fletcher emphasized the importance of voting, stating, 'I feel good about voting. It is important to vote.' She is believed to be one of the oldest voters in her state.
Accompanied by her grandsons Ike Howard and Tracey Flemons, Fletcher visited a Tulsa polling site located in a room named 'Greenwood,' after the Black neighborhood that was decimated during the race massacre. Greenwood, famously known as Black Wall Street, was the site of one of the most significant instances of racial violence in US history. The tragic event saw the deaths of as many as 300 Black individuals, along with the destruction of over 1,000 homes, businesses, schools, and churches, as a White mob pillaged and set fire to the district.
Another survivor of the massacre, Lessie Benningfield Randle, aged 109, also participated in the electoral process by casting an absentee ballot for Harris. Expressing her sentiments, Benningfield Randle shared, 'I don’t know how much longer I have left. But if this is my last ballot, then I’m grateful that it’s for Kamala Harris. I have five children and more than 20 grandbabies. VP Harris has the better chance of building the nation I want them to inherit.'
