Tulsa Race Massacre survivors lawsuit to move forward
ABC News
Three survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, all over 100 years old, have filed a public nuisance lawsuit against the city of Tulsa, seeking reparations.
A judge in Oklahoma ruled Monday that a Tulsa Race Massacre reparations lawsuit may proceed. The decision by Tulsa County Judge Caroline Wall was welcome news to 107-year-old Viola Ford Fletcher and two other survivors of the 1921 massacre.
Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of the destruction that ensued when white mobs attacked the prominent Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Incensed crowds flooded the streets of what is often referred to as Black Wall Street, killing the prosperous neighborhood’s Black residents and demolishing their homes over two days.
Fletcher said she and her family never returned to Tulsa after they fled the night of May 31, 1921. Her home had been ravaged by fire, leaving her and hundreds of others without any of their possessions and livelihoods.
“There wasn't anything to come back to,” she told ABC News.
