WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2021) Mother Viola Fletcher, a 107-year-old Black woman who survived the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma race massacre, will finally see her dream of visiting Africa fulfilled, Our Black Truth (OBT) Chief Operating Officer and trip organizer, Dr. Toni Luck, told Sputnik.
During a visit to Tulsa in May to participate in the somber centenary observances marking the Tulsa race massacre in the Greenwood district of Oklahoma's capital city, is when Luck learned that one wish on Fletcher's bucket list is to go to Africa.
Fletcher, the oldest living of three remaining survivors of the 1921 massacre, and her brother will be in Ghana for a week in the middle of August for the visit dubbed, "Coming Home: The Journey of a Lifetime."
"I've been going to Africa for 34 years. Ghana is part of an Africa experience that gives you a punch," Luck said. "Ghana is more user friendly than other countries and not as chaotic. So we sold Ghana to Mother Fletcher's grandson. Our Black Truth will oversee the trip and underwrite what we couldn't raise."
Luck said she recalls how painful it was listening to Fletcher's testimony before Congress in mid-May about the massacre.
"She lives everyday with the nightmare of fire, smoke, people being murdered and planes dropping bombs on the Greenwood district. She had 36,500 years of bad memories. We're going to give her some new memories," Luck said. "It's a seven-day visit to Accra, Cape Coast and we may have a durbar in Accra."
Fletcher, the other survivors and descendants of those killed and dispossessed a century ago, have filed a lawsuit seeking reparations for their losses. During her testimony Fletcher said she is seeking justice that she has not seen in her entire life.
Luck said 36 square blocks of Black businesses, homes and Black-owned establishments were burned to ashes by white Tulsa residents who killed more than 300 people, looted and burned more than 1,000 homes, churches, schools and businesses and left more than 10,000 people homeless and displaced.
"It was devastation, yet for many, many years, Tulsa was a national secret. People who survived ran everywhere to save their lives. Mother Fletcher ended up in California and worked in a shipyard during WW II," she said of the May 31, 1921 massacre.
One hundred years later, Luck said, Tulsa and the United States are still reckoning with these examples of its violent, racist history. But Tulsa was not an aberration, she added.
"I have a map between 1890 and 1930 and there were 15 Tulsas all over the US. Every community was highly actualized and thriving," Luck said. "Black people owned homes and businesses in communities that were independent and separate. But there was white rage of the excellence Black people exhibited."
Our Black Truth (OBT) is a social media platform where Africans and African-descended people can communicate with each other without fear of being censored for speaking the truth regarding topics that affect the community.
