The three remaining survivors of one of America’s largest racially motivated crimes against Black people are now hundreds of thousands of dollars richer.
A New York-based nonprofit has made a substantial donation to them to assist in making the last years of their lives “comfortable” and stress-free, in some sense a compensation for the harms inflicted on them over 100 years ago.
On Wednesday, May 18, the Business for Good Foundation donated $1 million to the three survivors from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, 108-year-old Viola Fletcher, 107-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, and 101-year-old Hughes Van Ellis.
The trio, who were children when the devastating riot occurred, were presented the check at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the heart of Tulsa and created to preserve African American history and heritage through programs and exhibitions.
Fletcher, the oldest of the three, was 7 years old when mobs attacked the all-Black community of Greenwood, a booming business district known as “Black Wall Street,” the Washington Post reports.
While there have been documentaries, movies, television shows, and books created about the massacre that killed at least 300 and displaced 10,000 Black people, not one white person was arrested or charged for the savagery.
The survivors recalled days after the incident, survivors were gathered at gunpoint and placed in “internment camps.”
Read full story at Atlanta Black Star here.
