Tulsa, Oklahoma - Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle has turned 111 years old amid her ongoing fight for justice and reparations.

Randle was just six years old when law enforcement officers and deputized civilians launched a brutal white-supremacist attack on her home in Tulsa's Greenwood District.

Over May 31 and June 1, 1921, the attackers slaughtered at least 300 Black residents and destroyed 35 square blocks of the neighborhood known as Black Wall Street.

The Biden administration's Department of Justice described the massacre in a January 2025 report as an assault "so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence." The DOJ, nevertheless, ruled out prosecution in the case.

After the massacre, authorities immediately sought to cover up the crimes by destroying police records and burying bodies in unmarked mass graves. Survivors were confined in concentration camps and forced to clean and rebuild their community without any compensation.

In 2021, Randle described her experiences of the massacre in testimony to Congress, 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 and fellow living Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Viola Ford Fletcher, also 111, have been relentless in their quest for accountability and justice in their lifetimes.

In June, Congressman Al Green introduced legislation – the Original Justice for Living Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa/Greenwood Race Massacre Act – seeking more than $20 million in compensation for Randle and Fletcher.

Green's announcement followed Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols' launch of a $105-million reparations plan on the 104th anniversary of the massacre. The private charitable initiative will prioritize investments in affordable housing and homeownership, cultural and historic preservation, and economic development and education, including student scholarships and small-business grants.

The developments came after Justice For Greenwood in February unveiled a Project Greenwood blueprint calling for comprehensive actions to address the legacy of the massacre and to compensate the last two living survivors.

Before that, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a historic reparations lawsuit – brought by Randle, Fletcher, and the late Hughes Van Ellis – which accused the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Oklahoma National Guard, and other defendants of creating an ongoing public nuisance that continues to hurt Greenwood survivors and descendants today.

"They owe us something. They owe me something," Randle said in her written testimony to Congress in 2021. "I have lived much of my life poor. My opportunities were taken from me. And my community, North Tulsa – Black Tulsa – is still messed up today. They didn't rebuild it. It's empty. It's a ghetto."

Justice For Greenwood honored Randle with a special birthday message, saying, "Your life continues to strengthen our call for full justice – legal, economic, and historical – for you, for Mother Fletcher, and for every descendant of Greenwood."

"Happy 111th Birthday, Lessie Benningfield 'Mother' Randle. Because you remembered, we can demand repair. Because you stayed, we can say: Greenwood lives."