Viola Fletcher is 109, and her memoir Don’t Let Them Bury My Story is about to come out August fifteenth, making her the oldest girl in the world to publish a memoir. In it, she recollects the evening that turned often known as the Tulsa Massacre. On May 30, 1921, when Fletcher was solely 7 years outdated, a white mob descended on the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, burning it to the floor and killing what the remainder of the nation known as “Black Wall Street.”
“You know, I can still smell the smoke…the burning,” Fletcher stated. “I remember the bodies. All the Black bodies in the street. The sound of the guns…they didn’t stop — I can still hear them.”
The Tulsa Massacre is one in all many much less talked about moments in U.S. historical past that overwhelmingly exhibits the contempt many have had for marginalized communities on this nation. Memoirs like Fletcher’s not solely convey extra consciousness to these moments, but in addition present the very private, human toll they exacted.
Find extra information and tales of curiosity from the guide world in Breaking in Books.
Discussion about this post