Viola Fletcher passed away last week at age 111. Many may note that it would be a blessing to live to such an age. But I had just spoken about her multiple times this weekend, suggesting that one of the reasons she was still alive was to see justice in her lifetime.
She did not.
Mother Fletcher, as she is affectionately known, was the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre. It took her 99 years to talk about the horror that she experienced as a 7-year-old during that traumatic event, a 16-hour killing spree by White terrorists who responded to the accusation of a Black boy flirting with a White girl by murdering over 800 Black residents. Early on the morning of June 1, 1921, Viola began to witness the start of the horror in real time. She heard the smashing of glass windows, saw the bouncing of flames, and felt the anguish of neighbors she played with earlier that day.
I had been writing and talking about her extensively these past few weeks since she is the feature of a chapter in a forthcoming book I am writing about Psychological Reparations. My text argues that financial reparations is necessary but wholly insufficient for racism and its wrath: we must also tend to psychological repair. The racial trauma that Viola experienced, in fact, was made evident in every retelling of her story. She once said: “When I sleep, it is never very deep or for very long because of the anxiety and the things I see,” she wrote. “Imagine having the same horrible nightmare every night for 100 years.”
That nightmare is what brings me to her story. As a clinical psychologist, I study and treat the trauma that Black youth experience from racial discrimination, and Viola’s case is especially haunting.
It took Viola 99 years to talk about her experience. And not just to the news media or the Tulsa community: to anyone – including her own family. That’s what trauma does to us – it makes us feel unsafe in our own neighborhood, home, body.
In studies that my colleagues and I have conducted, we show that Black children have a range of psychological reactions to racist events that can lead them, their family, and their community to react in various ways. With reexperiencing intrusion, a child can feel like they are reliving the event through flashbacks or nightmares, for example. With negative mood and cognitions, a child may feel sad and have thoughts of worthlessness and hopelessness.
Through psychological arousal, a child may also feel heightened psychological and physiological senses, like a racing heart or mind. But the clear reaction for Viola was avoidance – like not going to places that would bring up the harms of the past. Even if it was about accessing memories in her own mind.
In the past five years, it has been startling for me to see her reflect on something a century after her event took place and still evoke the pain as if it were presently happening. This insight from a living victim of the massacre demonstrates the persistent, chronic, and nuanced ways that racism interferes with sleep, daily life, and the ability to talk with family members.
Current studies in psychology demonstrate these outcomes as well. Black children, who experience the greatest sheer number of racist events–over 5 incidents a day–and the most discomfort from these encounters, likewise have higher depression, anxiety, and stress in response.
And this does not stop in childhood – chronic psychological and physical problems cascade over the lifespan, interfering with daily life and even often cutting that life short to the tune of decades relative to adults of other racial backgrounds. And with 90% of Black youth and adults reporting experiencing racism, there is no shortage of health-related phenomena that manifests.
Most nefariously, these events do not even have to happen to Black youth themselves. Watching someone else experience it in person or online is sufficient to have these psychological burdens accumulate. Some studies suggest even more so for vicarious experiences. And once again, the evidence suggests that the compounding effect exists over the lifespan, with these witnessing experiences leading to more days off of work after high profile events are splashed across the news. All of these effects–psychological, physiological, physical, economic–have real material impacts on Black youth, families, and communities both now and over time.
With Viola, nothing can so clearly and painstakingly walk us through the cumulative impact of racial terror than a survivor–now ancestor–bearing witness.
In fact, until the day she died, Mother Fletcher recounted that she still slept with a nightlight – waiting, upright, to still be captured by “them”. That inability to sleep–to truly rest–is the only thing that gives me peace about her transition. We may have not been able to provide justice for her in her lifetime through fiscal or psychological reparations but our scientific work will continue on in honor of her and countless others. Even without grant money or government support, and in the face of executive orders and shifting priorities for universities, we know that treating trauma will keep the legacy of Viola Fletcher and those who suffer from racial stress and trauma every day alive.
Rest well, Mother Fletcher. It is finally time.