GREENWOOD Dist.–At 109 years old, Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Lessie Benningfield Randle voted for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris during early voting in Oklahoma on Friday.
Over a century after surviving a city-sanctioned racial domestic terror attack at just 6 years old in Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District, “Mother” Randle chose Harris in what she described as her potentially last election.
“I don’t know how much longer I have left, but if this is my last ballot, then I’m grateful that it’s for Kamala Harris,” Ms. Benningfield Randle said in a statement shared by her attorney at Justice For Greenwood Foundation. She voted absentee.
“I have five children and more than 20 grand-babies. VP Harris has the better chance of building the nation I want them to inherit.”
Born on November 10, 1914 at a time when women didn’t have the right to vote, Mother Randle survived a massacre, multiple global pandemics and forced displacement. Now, she hopes to witness history by making Harris the first woman elected President. The only other last known living survivor, 110-year-old Mother Viola Ford Fletcher, plans to vote on election day.
Tulsa Race Massacre survivor chooses Harris
Polls show a tight race with Harris holding onto a slight lead in the national vote while Trump holds a slight advantage in several swing states. Meanwhile, Mother Randle said she hopes voters will turn the page on the anger, racism and division coming from Donald Trump and his campaign supporters.
Ms. Benningfield Randle sees it as the same kind of anger that led a white mob to murder and ethnically cleanse upwards of 300 Black men, women and children from Greenwood.
American Red Cross Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-DIG-anrc-14738)
Deputized by the city of Tulsa and supported by other government entities, the mob burned down over 35 square blocks of a community that was home to the original Black Wall Street, according to the Tulsa Historical Society.
“The mob that murdered my neighbors in Greenwood was so angry, and this country is at risk of allowing that same anger to take over its soul again,” Randle said. In her statement, she asked voters to reject politicians who incite racism and violence, unchecked police brutality and bans on teaching the full history of this country.
For her part, VP Harris has expressed support for reparations before and after Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. “I think there has to be some form of reparations and we could discuss what that is,” Harris told the Root.
DOJ investigates massacre
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected survivors’ lawsuit against city, county and state governments that they argue allowed the harm from the massacre to continue unabated. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice under the Biden administration has opened the first federal investigation into the 103-year-old massacre.
“We thus are examining available documents, witness accounts, scholarly and historical research and other information on the massacre,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced at the beginning of October. “When we have finished our federal review, we will issue a report analyzing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights law.”
American National Red Cross Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-DIG-anrc-14746)
It’s unclear what action will come from the report before the next president is sworn into office. As Vice President, Kamala Harris has already met with Mother Randle and other survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Trump on the other hand, faced widespread condemnation when he held a rally just a few blocks from Greenwood’s Black Wall Street in 2020.
“Nobody who seeks to suppress our people’s history yet again should occupy the Oval Office,” Justice for Greenwood founder and civil rights attorney for the survivors Damario Solomon-Simmons stated.
Survivor asks voters to reject “tyrant” Trump
Most recently, Trump remains submerged in controversy after his latest statements regarding Liz Cheney, a high-profile Republican who is campaigning for Kamala Harris.
Sitting down with right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson in the swing state of Arizona on Thursday, Trump expressed his grievances with Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Let’s put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,” Trump told Carlson. “OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris gave a closing speech Tuesday in Washington, D.C. at the same location where Trump incited a white mob to storm the U.S. Capitol nearly four years earlier. She pitched the 2024 election as a battle between a prosecutor who seeks unity and freedom against a selfish billionaire who cares only about obtaining more power for himself.
“On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list, full of priorities of what I will get done for the American people,” Harris said.
For Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Mother Randle, voting Kamala Harris wasn’t a difficult decision. She described a choice between democracy and tyranny. She wants voters to elect Kamala Harris.
“My grandchildren deserve a world where taking care of their parents isn’t a financial struggle, medication is affordable, and women are free. All of our children deserve a president who will inspire them to learn from history, not a tyrant who will try to erase it,” Randle said.
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Her vote will not be in vain. I predict Harris will win the election.