Being a centenarian hasn’t slowed down Viola Ford Fletcher’s pursuit of justice.
In the last couple of years, Fletcher has traveled internationally, testified before Congress and supported a lawsuit for reparations — all part of a campaign for accountability over the massacre that destroyed Tulsa, Oklahoma’s original “Black Wall Street” in 1921, when she was a child.
Now, at age 109, Fletcher is releasing a memoir about the life she lived in the shadow of the massacre, after a white mob laid waste to the once-thriving Black enclave known as Greenwood. The book will be published by Mocha Media Inc. on Tuesday and becomes widely available for purchase on Aug. 15.
![A black and white photo of a city street and church lying in ruins.](https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/GettyImages-1250625227-800x487.jpg)
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, she said fear of reprisal for speaking out had influenced years of near-silence about the massacre.
“Now that I’m an old lady, there’s nothing else to talk about,” Fletcher said. “We decided to do a book about it and maybe that would help.”