Two survivors of the 1921 massacre of black people in the US city of Tulsa have been granted citizenship of Ghana, according to the Justice for Greenwood Foundation.
Viola Ford Fletcher, 108 and her brother Hughes Van Ellis, 102, became the oldest African Americans to be granted Ghanaian citizenship.
They are two of three living survivors of the massacre that claimed up to 300 African-American lives.
About 300 Black residents of the prosperous Greenwood town then known as “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were murdered and their businesses and homes destroyed by a mob of white people.
On May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents attacked Black residents, homes, and businesses, as well as cultural and public institutions in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK, an oil boom city. Greenwood was also know as “Black Wall Street,” one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States. As a result of this attack, thirty-five blocks were systematically looted and burned, destroying 190 businesses and leaving 10,000 people homeless. The property loss estimated by the Tulsa Real Estate Exchange was the equivalent of $31 million in 2017, likely an underestimation.
Viola Fletcher, known as Mother Fletcher and her brother Van Ellis, known as “Uncle Red” visited Ghana in August 2021 as part of a week-long tour of Africa to mark the centenary of the killings, known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.
