107-year-old survivor of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Testifies in front of Congress 😳

[FelineOverlord]

AMAZING. Oh, and her brother is 100 years old.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

RFN!

[FelineOverlord]

2. 107-year-old survivor of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Testifies in front of Congress 😳

Link to tweet

[WA-03 Democrat]

3. Amazing

Thanks for posting!

[FelineOverlord]

4. 107-year-old survivor of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Testifies in front of Congress 😳

Link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/19/viola-fletcher-tulsa-race-massacre-survivor/#click=https://t.co/Vqz8x7cWDp

Link to tweet

[moonscape]

18. She looks 80! n/t

[housecat]

25. If there is to be justice, this is the POTUS and VP to bring it.

[BComplex]

5. You can clearly see Gym Jordan on the dais, hands on hips, looking oh so superior.

What a piece of shit.

[not fooled]

11. He looks pissed

Her testimony interferes with the GOPee's plan to pretend nothing like the Tulsa massacre ever happened.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Bingo ! "White people did something wrong ?!? Get outta here !" nt

[hlthe2b]

6. Amazing indeed! What incredible fortitude and courage.

[DURHAM D]

7. Does she have a Go Fund Me page?

I want to send her some money.

[Caliman73]

8. The worst thing about this is that SO FEW people even know this occurred...

And that this was actually one of the worst, of several incidents like this, where angry White people destroyed communities of color that had been built up successfully through the hard work of those communities, for nothing more than racial hatred.

When people say that we have moved on from racism, or are against the teaching of Critical Theory, I always point out that we are only about 150 years removed from when people owned slaves, only 100 years removed from when Black people, Latinos, and Asian people were lynched just for being who they are, less than 60 years from when segregation was still legal, and just two years before I was born, anti-Miscegenation laws were finally struck down nationwide. I am not yet 50 and there were laws that prohibited people with different skin color from marrying still on the books just before I was born, my sister was already born at that time.

We are progressing slowly and painfully, but we will NEVER move through this until everything is brought out into the open and dealt with honestly.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. I only learned about this in the last ten years. I've been politically active, I read/watch news

I'm over 70. It is absolutely disgraceful how white America has white washed out almost all of the details of our continuing racist history.

[Caliman73]

12. It is weird to me.

I am Latino, but I am also a man, so I see things from the perspective of someone who has both been disadvantaged (as a Latino) and advantaged (as a man) by society. I have no problem looking at and understanding the privilege I have had being a man, being from a middle class family, being educated, etc... I don't feel guilty for being a man, even as I acknowledge that I have definitely benefited from being a man, and that things have been made unfair to women. What I do understand is that I, as a man, have to use my privilege to access and try to change that situation to make things more fair for women. I have to look at how I, through language and action, contribute to the propagation of disadvantages toward women. On a micro level, I need to stop using phrases like, "You run like a girl" as an insult. When I see people using that type of language, I have to call it out. I have to help raise my daughter to embrace both feminine and masculine qualities in herself without judgement about which are better. They are both part of her and make her a whole person. I have to raise my sons to respect women and to embrace and not be ashamed of their feelings, their vulnerability, and their humanity.

What I don't understand his how White people are so threatened by the idea that they can undergo the same process with respect to their skin color and privilege. They think that they are being oppressed by having to acknowledge that the rules are likely unfair to a group of people and should be changed to stop that unfair disadvantage.

It doesn't have to be a condemnation. Just acknowledge that this is part of our history, that this idea that America has always been this magical place free from problems and that we are "the best" at freedom and equality, is not true, but we can make it true moving forward. We can live up to the ideals. We can become the nation that we think we are.

[ariadne0614]

16. Your remarks give me hope for HuMANity.

Thank you for taking the time to express them.

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. I agree completely

What you wrote makes perfect sense, and we will all live in a better nation if more justice prevailed here. I know with absolute certainty that I "lost out" to two excellent jobs during my career as a result of affirmative action. I'm not guessing, I know. And the places doing the hiring made the right decision and I had no problem with it. I was working in the general field of human services/ mental health and the agencies doing the hiring needed to have diversity on their staffs. Not "needed" because the government required it, they needed diversity in order to effectively deliver services to some parts of the community. The people who got the jobs were well qualified, I just know that all other things being equal I would have been hired because they already knew my work and thought very highly of it. They trusted me enough to be honest with me about that, because they knew that I agreed with them about their needs. Had no other well qualified candidates emerged from a demographic that they were under represented in, they gladly would have hired me.

I'm a straight white male and they had enough straight white males. They were right, but as a straight white male other job possibilities did open up for me elsewhere later. Because in most instances my identity has been a privilege I enjoy by birth, and I try never to lose sight of that.

[Jerry2144]

14. Right

I only learned about it from the TV show the Watchman. I thought it was made up for TV and had to research it. What horrible people to have done that.

[catrose]

21. And until recently it was called the Tulsa Race Riot. I'm glad it's changed to MASSACRE

[jaxexpat]

27. There's reason to believe lynching had not yet lost fashion fewer than 50 years ago.

Who doubts for a moment that, but for a few rare and endangered statutes, the mobs would regularly have the nerve to go for it again?

[SergeStorms]

10. Good for her!

She spent a lifetime of poverty because her rights were taken away from her. She and her brother aren't asking for anything but justice, 100 years later.

There are an ever increasing amount of moments when I'm ashamed of our country. Do the right thing, Congress.

[BobTheSubgenius]

15. Justice, in the form of acknowledgement and apology, and some compensation and/or ongoing support

doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it? Imagine if the racial component to this awful story was inverted - an AA massacre of Caucasians just going about their lives and imagine the response. There wouldn't have been a black person left alive within 100 miles.

[malthaussen]

17. "Damn, I thought we'd delayed this so long there'd be no one left alive!" saith Congress.

Pro tip, guys: make sure there's no one left to testify before you begin your belated "investigation."

-- Mal

[tavernier]

19. You win.

[snort]

20. Knock Knock! Hello, may I borrow a cup of your genes, please?

[Nexus2]

22. Their family line has wonderful constitutions! O.O

Its impressive they made the trip, but their stories needed to be told. I'm proud to see such courage and will on display.

It seems a little odd how her brother seems to be being shuffled off as an 'also attended' in this thread, though?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

24. WaPo article on this if you can get past the pay wall

One of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — 107 years old — wants justice

She had just turned 7 when a White mob descended on her all-Black neighborhood in a murderous rage.

“I’m a survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre,” Viola Fletcher, 107, told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee Wednesday. “Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 107th birthday. Today, I’m visiting Washington, D.C., for the first time in my life. I’m here seeking justice and asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921.”

Fletcher, her 100-year-old brother, Hughes “Uncle Red” Vann Ellis, and a third survivor, 106-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, appeared before the subcommittee to push for reparations for one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history.

All three are lead plaintiffs in a reparations lawsuit filed last year against the City of Tulsa, the County of Tulsa, the State of Oklahoma and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. The lawsuit argues Oklahoma and Tulsa are responsible for what happened during the massacre, which historians believe left as many as 300 Black people dead, 10,000 homeless and the all-Black community of Greenwood destroyed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/19/viola-fletcher-tulsa-race-massacre-survivor/

[3catwoman3]

26. Her voice was remarkably strong and steady.

Very impressive.

[llashram]

28. the only other

culture/race responded to by the 'Manifest Destiny' people of this country in such a horrific manner, the First Americans of ALL Native-American nations...and the African-American is still in an ongoing, slow attrition genocide. Men, women, and children. Sad amerikkka, really stupid, mean ignorant people drive this hate.

[Blue Owl]

29. K&R