Two survivors of a racially-driven massacre that killed up to 300 people in the United States were both in Ghana, as they visited the west African country to “connect with the motherland.”
107-year-old Viola Fletcher and her brother Hughes Van Ellis, who is 100, are from the district of Greenwood in Tulsa, in Oklahoma, which was devastated by a mob of armed white people in 1921. In the area otherwise known as “Black Wall Street” at least 300 African Americans were killed in the attack, with some 10,000 left homeless when the district was set ablaze, leaving a vibrant economy in ruins.
Violet and Hughes were accompanied by their grandchildren on the trip as part of a government campaign to attract people of African heritage abroad ‘back home’. The wheelchair-bound siblings landed in Ghana’s capital of Accra as they were greeted by onlookers who cheered with shouts of “welcome home.”
With mother Violet beaming from ear-to-ear, her daughter, Mama, said: “It’s my first time on the continent of Africa and I’m just thrilled to be here.”
After being greeted with flowers and sashes, Fletcher’s grandson, Ike Howard, said: “My grandparents are extremely excited to be home for the first time on the motherland.
“If you haven’t visited Africa, this is the time to come. We are in the middle of a pandemic but tomorrow is never promised to anyone.” The visit is part of the ‘Beyond the Return’ – which references the government campaign launched in 2019, four centuries after the first slave ship landed in what is now the United States.
Viola, who says she relives memories of the massacre every day, recalled: “On that first night, in 1921, I went to bed in my family’s home in Greenwood.
“I had everything a child could need… But within a few horrible hours, all of that was gone. Now, after all these years, I’m so happy to be fulfilling a lifelong dream of going to Africa and I’m so blessed that it is to Ghana.”
Ghana has long played a role as a hub of thought and memory for the broader Black community. The non-profit organisation co-sponsored the trip with Our Black Truth, a social media platform where African descendants can learn about their history.
Some of the last survivors of the Tulsa massacre recently testified before the US Congress, asking that the country recognise their suffering. No one was ever convicted over the destruction of Greenwood, and insurance companies, claiming that the unrest was the result of riots, refused to reimburse the victims.
Marking 100-years since the massacre, President Joe Biden said that he recognised that there was a clear effort to erase the event from the nation’s memory.
