President Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo had a rare opportunity to meet the last two survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Viola Fletcher and her younger brother Hughes Van Ellis on Thursday.
This was when the two Viola Fletcher, popularly known as ‘Mother Fletcher ’(107 years old) and her brother Hughes Van Ellis, also famously known as ‘Uncle Redd’ (100 years old) paid a courtesy call on him at the Jubilee House (presidency).
They are in the country as part of activities to mark the centenary celebration of the 1921 mob attack on white people in the Greenwood District, Tulsa, Oklahoma, which left many blacks dead, with other losing businesses.
The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US.
Alternatively known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, the event is considered one of “the single worst incident[s] of racial violence in American history”.
The attacks burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighbourhood – at the time one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States, known as “Black Wall Street”.
The centenary of this unfortunate event coincidentally feeds into Ghana’s ‘Beyond the Return’ initiative, an offshoot of the ‘Year of Return’ celebrations held in 2019 in memory of the commencement of slavery 400years ago.
It had been the wish of the duo to visit Africa before they passed, and made Ghana the place of choice to fulfil this wish.
In her brief remarks, Madame Violet Fletcher expressed delight for the opportunity to meet the President during such an auspicious moment in the history of the massacre.
An overwhelmed brother, Uncle Redd could not but put her thought in a simpler sentence “we are one”, a comment President Akufo-Addo associated himself with
“I think that Uncle Redd said it all that we are one”, were his exact words when the President got the opportunity to address survivors of the infamous Tulsa race massacre.
That, he said was because it was the idea of being one that had influenced some of his government’s policies, especially that of the ‘Year of Return’.
“We want to make it clear that this country is your country and anyone who wants to come to re-establish, connect with us here, is welcome. We are all part and parcel of this great African family and the sooner all of us recognise it and work towards the strength of this family, the better for each one of us”, was his clarion call.
His reason was pure and simple “separated as we have been doing not help us [but] come together. And I will remember this occasion where Uncle Redd said we were one.”
President Akufo-Addo described the 1921 massacre as one of the many infamous incidents in the history of America where black people were brutalised and victimised by the forces of hate and oppression.
He however noted that the resilience of black people is demonstrated by the presence of the survivors who have lived to tell the story.
President Akufo-Addo hinted at the process of preparing a Homeland Act, a legislation that will facilitate the acquisition of Ghanaian nationality by indigenes in the African diaspora across the world.
According to the Deputy Director, Diaspora Affairs, Office of the President, Nadia Adongo Musah, the significance of this historic visit is one which Ghana will sing about for years to come.
She said the visit echoes the interest in Ghana by the African Diaspora as a gateway to Africa, believing that this visit will also give the much-needed impetus towards our Beyond the Return agenda.
Viola Fletcher and her brother Hughes Van Ellis depart Ghana for the United States on Saturday, August 21, 2021.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent