The Only Ones Left
a found poem amid the testimonies of Ms. Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Mr. Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, and Ms. Lessie Evelyn Benningfield “Mother” Randle on the occasion of the Centennial of the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre before the House Committee of the Judiciary, May 19, 2021
I have never seen justice.
A hundred years ago, I was
a 6-year old child
I am
a survivor
I was lucky. I
had a home
& toys.
I
didn’t have any fear.
Greenwood
represented
everything that is possible for
Black America
I still
smell the smoke
see the fire
the planes overhead
It was like
a war
Men with guns
came
(What did we do to them?)
They
burned houses & businesses
They
took what they wanted
They
dropped
bombs
& bodies
into the river
I
remember running
past
dead
We lost everything that day—
we were
refugees
in our own country.
You may have been taught
that you can
go
to the courts to
be made whole
Oklahoma wouldn’t
hear us
They said we were
too late.
We
did duty in World War II,
fought
for freedom,
even though it was ripped
away at home because of
the color
of skin.
But I still believed in the promise
of America
We’re not asking for a handout.
All
we are asking for
is to be treated
like a beneficiary
of the promise—
liberty and justice for all
We are made to feel
crazy
just for asking for things
to be made right. There are always
so many
excuses
They
owe us
I have lived much of my life poor.
We three here today are
the only ones left
We aren’t just Black and White
pictures
on a screen
We
are flesh and blood
We
were there
We
are still here
People have told us to wait.
We have waited a hundred years
And I am tired,
we are
tired.
I am here today, 106 years old,
looking at you all
in the eye.
Note: When Ms. Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Mr. Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, and Ms. Lessie Evelyn Benningfield “Mother” Randle, who were the only three survivors of the Tulsa Massacre, addressed the House Committee of the Judiciary in 2021, I watched them give their speeches live. Their voices rose in one accord: despite their pain and their patience, they still longed for justice. Then Van Ellis died in 2023. On June 12, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed their lawsuit, which they’d filed in 2020. In 2025, however, Mayor Monroe Nichols announced the City of Tulsa would spend $105 million in “reparations” in the forms of community development, cultural preservation, and scholarships. There will be no direct payments to Ms. Fletcher and Ms. Randle, who in 2025 turned 111 and 110 years old, respectively, or any victims’ descendants.
An eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including Full Worm Moon, which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award. Recent poetry has appeared in African American Review, Image, Quartet, Sojourners, SWWIM, Thimble, and Verse Daily. Her new book of poetry, Devil’s Backbone, will be released by Wildhouse Publishing in June 2026. Learn more about her work at julielmoore.com.
Read two poems by Julie L. Moore also appearing in Terrain.org.
Read other Letters to America online or in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, published in partnership with Trinity University Press.
Header photo of Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, burning on June 1, 1921, courtesy United States Library of Congress, Public Domain.
