Viola Fletcher rejoined her ancestors this week. She was 111 years old. At the time of her death, Ms. Fletcher was the oldest survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. When I first learned about it in the early 2000s, it was called the Tulsa Race Riot.

Massacre is the more appropriate label. Across two days, May 31 and June 1, an angry white mob terrorized, looted, and destroyed Greenwood , an affluent Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The mob included men deputized for that purpose and boys as young as 10 years old.

The source of their anger was typical of the time: a Black boy who did not know his place. Nineteen-year-old Dick Rowland, a shoe shiner, was accused of attempting to rape 17-year-old Sarah Page, a white girl, on May 30. The attempt was alleged to have taken place in

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