Viola Fletcher, Oldest Living Survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, Turns 110: 'Proud to Be This Age'

"It's a blessing to live this long," said Viola Fletcher

Viola Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, has 110 reasons to celebrate, as she just celebrated another milestone birthday with loved ones.

During a recent celebration in Little Elm, Texas, Fletcher spoke about her monumental age and how others “can do it” too.

"I'm real proud to be this age," Fletcher said while speaking with NBC affiliate KJRH-TV. "It's a blessing to live this long."

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What's her secret?

"Just do the things that are good for you," she told Oklahoma State University's Oklahoma Oral History Research Program in 2014. "Sleeping and eating and exercising. It's no problem with me."

Related: Archaeologists Searching for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Victims Find 5 More Coffins

Fletcher was only 7 years old when the tragedy struck her Oklahoma town. After a young Black man who rode in an elevator with a White woman was arrested and allegedly accused of sexual assault, an "inflammatory" local news report sparked a confrontation between Black and white mobs, and soon, white rioters descended upon the Greenwood District to loot and burn the area.

In totality, 35 city blocks were destroyed by fire, 800 people were injured and 36 people died, according to initial reports, though historians now believe as many as 300 people died.

Following the unspeakable incident Fletcher married her husband Robert Fletcher in 1932, and moved to California with him during World War II to work in the shipyards, where she was an assistant welder and laid slabs of steel to build ships, according to her oral history.

Related: Recognizing the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre with Survivors' Powerful Accounts

After the war, the couple settled in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to raise their three children, and Fletcher eventually retired from work at age 85.

"I'll say that I'm Black and I'm proud," she said. "Nothing you can do about who you are, regardless of what you look like… We have the same red blood as other people."

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