Hughes Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” has died.
FILE - Tulsa Race Massacre survivors Hughes Van Ellis, left, and Lessie Benningfield Randle ride in a carriage at a remembrance walk during centennial commemorations of the Tulsa Race Massacre, May 28, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on Black Wall Street, died on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. He was 102.
“I’ll remember each time that Uncle Redd’s passionate voice reached hearts and minds in courtrooms, halls of Congress, and interviews,” said Damario Solomon-Simmons, one of the attorneys who has pursued compensation for the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Tensions between Tulsa’s Black and white residents inflamed when, on May 31, 1921, the white-owned Tulsa Tribune published a sensationalized report of an alleged assault by a 19-year-old Black shoeshine on a 17-year-old white girl working as an elevator operator.
Although residents rebuilt Greenwood — the predominantly African American neighborhood known as Black Wall Street — urban renewal and a highway project pushed Black Tulsans out of the area. With Van Ellis' death, only two Tulsa Race Massacre survivors remain — Fletcher and 108-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle. In August, Oklahoma's high court
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Hughes Van Ellis, youngest known survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, dies at 102Hughes Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” has died.
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Read more »
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Read more »