Tulsa, Oklahoma - Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle has turned 112 years old amid her ongoing quest for justice and reparations.

Mother Randle marks her 112th birthday on November 10, making her the oldest known living survivor of what is widely considered one of America's worst acts of domestic terror.

The supercentenarian was just six years old when Tulsa's white community launched a brutal attack on the city's Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street.

Over May 31 and June 1, 1921, the law enforcement officers and deputized civilians killed at least 300 Black residents and destroyed 35 square blocks of Randle's neighborhood, burning homes and businesses to the ground and stealing property. The US Department of Justice described the violence in a January 2025 report as a "coordinated, military-style attack."

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In the aftermath of the assault, around 6,000 Black residents were confined in concentration camps and forced to labor, cleaning up the destruction left by the white assailants. Many massacre victims were buried in unmarked graves, while white media sought to blame Greenwood residents for their own community's demolition.

In 2021, Randle described her experiences of the massacre in congressional testimony, saying, "I was blessed to live with my grandmother in a beautiful Black community in Tulsa Oklahoma, called Greenwood. I was lucky. I had a home. I had toys. I didn't have any fears as a young child and I felt very safe. My community was beautiful and was filled with happy and successful Black people. Then everything changed."

"It was like a war. White men with guns came and destroyed my community. We couldn't understand why. What did we do to them?"

Randle said in the years since, she has continued to experience flashbacks of Black bodies piled on the street as her neighborhood burned.

"By the grace of God, I am still here. I have survived. I have survived to tell this story," she said.

Randle, alongside fellow survivors Viola Ford Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis, made international headlines when she launched a historic reparations lawsuit against the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Oklahoma National Guard, and others.

The suit charged defendants with creating an ongoing public nuisance that continues to hurt Greenwood survivors and descendants today.

The plaintiffs and their legal team argued that in the years since the massacre, the city has thwarted Greenwood residents' attempts to rebuild their community through the enactment of racist zoning codes, so-called "urban renewal" redevelopment schemes, and other obstacles.

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In 1980, Randle was forced to move from her family's home in Greenwood when it was taken by the City of Tulsa for "urban renewal," a period of forced displacement which many community members refer to as the "second massacre," according to Justice for Greenwood.

Advocates connected the city's failure to address its history of anti-Black violence with today's stark racial disparities across wealth, housing, nutrition, health, and other areas.

The case was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June 2024, but the survivors' action succeeded in bringing national attention to the massacre and its legacies.

Fletcher and Ellis, who were siblings, have since passed at the ages of 111 and 102, respectively. Neither received any reparations.

The rejection of the public nuisance lawsuit was not the end of the fight for reparations for Greenwood.

In June 2025, on the 104th anniversary of the massacre, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols announced a $105-million reparations plan, in line with several of the proposals included in Justice for Greenwood's Project Greenwood blueprint.

The mayor's plan does not include direct compensation for survivors or descendants of the massacre.

Outgoing Congressman Al Green in June 2025 introduced federal legislation to provide more than $20 million in compensation to Randle and Fletcher, who was still alive at the time.

Today, advocates continue to fight for reparations for Randle and for Greenwood descendants.

The supercentenarian hopes that speaking out will help to prevent present and future injustices.

"You can't make nobody learn nothing, but you can teach them," Randle said in the 2024 documentary Greenwood Is Still Burning.

"Eventually, if they have any right thing in their heart, it will come to pass. And now if we all do that, we would have a different world."