The pundits I listen to sprinkle the bad news they’re compelled to deliver with a few feel-good stories. I celebrate this way of tempering doomsday posts with rays of hope, however slight. Despite all else, they serve to guide me through yet another reckoning. I celebrate each trace of light I find: headlines proclaiming victory for the first Black mayor of my birthplace; and, during the same week, notice of the 110th birthday celebration for one of the last two remaining survivors of Tulsa’s Race Massacre. I celebrate resilience. I celebrate courage. I celebrate each silver lining.

hometown heroes ...
the year’s last supermoon
shining, shining

Bio: Margaret Dornaus

Publisher’s Note:

Lessie Benningfield Randle (aka Mother Randle) and Viola Fletcher (aka Mother Fletcher) are both 110 years old, and the only known remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre (Survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, “Mother Randle,” marks 110th birthday, by Deena Zaru and Abby Cruz, for Good Morning America, 11 November 2024).

Mothers Randle and Fletcher have long spoken out against censoring Black history and have led the fight for reparations. In September 2024, the Department of Justice announced that its Civil Rights Division’s Cold Case Unit would be conducting the first-ever federal review of the 1921 attack on the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa often referred to as “Black Wall Street” (DOJ announces first-ever federal review of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, by Leah Sarnoff and Abigail Cruz for ABC News, 30 September 2024).

This horrific event is described as “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” On 31 May and 1 June 1921, “during the course of eighteen terrible hours ... more than one thousand homes and businesses were destroyed, while credible estimates of deaths range from fifty to three hundred” (Oklahoma Historical Society: Tulsa Race Massacre).

See also 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: The Attack on Greenwood at Tulsa Historical Society and Museum online.

Links retrieved on 11 December 2024.