Hughes Van Ellis, one in all three identified remaining survivors of the bloodbath during which a white mob killed a whole bunch of Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921, died on Monday at a veterans’ hospital in Denver. He was 102.
His dying was confirmed by his daughter Muriel Ellis Watson, who mentioned in a phone interview that her father had been receiving remedy for most cancers that had lately unfold to his mind.
Along with Lessie Benningfield Randle, 108, Mr. Ellis and his sister Viola Ford Fletcher, 109, have been the final identified survivors of the 1921 bloodbath, during which a closely armed white mob killed a whole bunch of Black residents and burned a lot of Tulsa’s affluent Greenwood neighborhood to the bottom. The killing and destruction made it one of many worst racist terror assaults in U.S. historical past.
On May 31, 1921, a Black man, Dick Rowland, was accused of sexually assaulting a white girl in an elevator in downtown Tulsa. After he was jailed, a bunch of armed Black individuals, fearful he could be lynched, gathered exterior the county courthouse to make sure his security.
Hundreds of white residents of Tulsa referred to as on the sheriff to show Mr. Rowland over and, in accordance with a 2001 report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, a Black man’s gun went off when a white man tried to seize it.
The white mob unfold out by means of downtown Tulsa, capturing Black individuals on sight and setting fireplace to companies in Greenwood. The destruction eradicated a thriving district referred to as Black Wall Street, the place Black entrepreneurs owned and ran eating places, resorts, theaters and different companies.
As many as 300 Black individuals have been killed and greater than 1,200 properties have been destroyed.
The expenses in opposition to Mr. Rowland have been finally dropped. The fee report mentioned the authorities concluded that he had more than likely tripped and stepped on the lady’s foot.
In 2020, Mr. Ellis, Ms. Fletcher and Ms. Randle joined descendants of different victims of the bloodbath in submitting a lawsuit in search of reparations for the losses they endured. Seven defendants have been named within the lawsuit, together with the town of Tulsa, the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, the Oklahoma National Guard and the town’s chamber of commerce.
Damario Solomon-Simmons, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, mentioned in a phone interview that he had filed extra arguments in court docket on Tuesday, and emphasised the urgency given the ages of the remaining plaintiffs.
“We’re in a race against time,” he added in a press release. “Neither the city of Tulsa nor the Tulsa County judicial system should be allowed to keep moving the finish line for the remaining survivors who have been fighting with their final breaths just to get their day in court.”
Hughes Van Ellis was born in Holdenville, Okla., on Jan. 11, 1921. He was not but 5 months previous on the time of the bloodbath, after which his dad and mom fled Tulsa with their six youngsters, leaving their residence and possessions, Ms. Watson mentioned. The household finally grew to eight youngsters.
“Because of the massacre, my family was driven out of our home,” Mr. Ellis informed members of a House Judiciary subcommittee in May 2021. “We were left with nothing. We were made refugees in our own country.”
He was drafted and served in an all-Black fight unit in World War II, Ms. Watson mentioned. He married Mable V. Ellis in 1942, finally settling in Oklahoma City.
Mr. Ellis labored as a sharecropper and as a mechanic at what’s now Tinker Air Force Base, Ms. Watson mentioned. He additionally labored as a janitor, a gardener and a gasoline station attendant, his daughter mentioned. He and his spouse finally had seven youngsters and settled in Denver. Ms. Ellis died in 2011.
In addition to his sister and Ms. Watson, Mr. Ellis’s survivors embody one other daughter, Malee V. Craft. Complete details about his survivors was not instantly out there.
After the Tulsa Race Massacre, officers set about erasing it from the town’s historic document. Victims have been buried in unmarked graves. Police information vanished. Newspaper articles about it have been eliminated earlier than the pages transferred to microfilm. Schools in Oklahoma weren’t instructed to show college students about it till 2002.
Mr. Ellis and the opposite survivors carried the expertise of the bloodbath with them previous age 100 as they sought reparations and a measure of justice.
“The Tulsa Race Massacre isn’t a footnote in a history book for us,” Mr. Ellis informed the House subcommittee in 2021. “We live with it every day, and the thought of what Greenwood was and what it could have been.”
“We aren’t just black-and-white pictures on a screen,” he added. “We are flesh and blood. I was there when it happened. I’m still here.”
Source: www.nytimes.com