MediaPunch Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoViola Ford Fletcher testifying in Congress in 2021. Viola Ford Fletcher, one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, died on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, surrounded by family at a Tulsa hospital. She was 111. “She had a beautiful smile on her face,” her grandson Ike Howard told CNN. “She loved life, she loved people.” Fletcher had spent her later years seeking justice for the massacre, a deadly attack by a white mob on the once-thriving Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was seven years old when the assault on her neighborhood began on May 31, 1921, after local news outlets released sensationalized reports about a young Black man accused of assaulting a white woman, with one outlet running the headline “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in an Elevator.” Over 18 hours, the Greenwood district — once referred to as “Black Wall Street” — was decimated by an angry white mob that killed hundreds of people, burned and looted homes and businesses, and left 35 city blocks destroyed. “The questions I had then remain to this day,” Fletcher wrote in her memoir, Don’t Let Them Bury My Story. “How could you just give a mob of violent, crazed, racist people a bunch of deadly weapons and allow them — no, encourage them — to go out and kill innocent Black folks and demolish a whole community?” The Devastation Of The Tulsa Race Massacre The Tulsa Race Massacre was the culmination of years of mounting tension between Black and white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood had been established in 1906 by wealthy Black landowner O. W. Gurley, who purchased 40 acres of land and began loaning money to other Black citizens who wanted to start businesses. Soon enough, Greenwood was thriving and had earned the nickname “Black Wall Street.” Racist white residents in the surrounding regions took note, too. The prospering Black community made their blood boil. Resentment built up in them. They were ready to explode with rage. All they needed was something to light the fuse. This spark came in the form of a newspaper article, published in the white-owned Tulsa Tribune, which published a sensationalized report about a 19-year-old Black shoeshine named Dick Rowland who was accused of assaulting 17-year-old Sarah Page in an elevator. “The girl said she noticed the negro a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway… as if to see if there was anyone in sight but thought nothing of it at the time,” the paper reported. “A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing at her clothes.” Tulsa Historical Society & MuseumBlack men being marched down the street at gunpoint during the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. Page never pressed charges against Rowland. According to his account, he had simply tripped and fallen on Page while on his way to the restroom. Either way, the fuse was lit. Rowland was taken into custody, and a white mob quickly formed, intending to kidnap Rowland from the local jail to lynch him. The Black men of Greenwood, however, formed their own armed militia to meet the white mob and prevent the injustice from being carried out. A separate violent confrontation between Black and white residents plunged the city into full-on war. Though it lasted less than 18 hours, the Tulsa Race Massacre would end with the declaration of martial law, the deployment of the Oklahoma National Guard, as many as 300 people dead, 35 city blocks leveled, 191 businesses destroyed, and roughly 10,000 Black residents displaced. Thousands of white rioters flooded into Greenwood, unleashing their fury as they shot Black men in the streets while buildings burned around them. One man even fired his shotgun at Fletcher’s family’s horse-drawn buggy as they attempted to flee, mere moments after she watched a Black man’s head explode like “a watermelon dropped off the rooftop of a barn.” These horrific sights remained drilled into Fletcher’s mind for the rest of her life. Survivors Continue To Fight For Reparations Although she spent much of her life silent on the massacre, Fletcher began to speak about it more publicly in her later years, especially as surviving victims of the attack publicly fought for reparations and accountability. Fletcher’s death carries significant symbolic weight, too. In June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit from the survivors on the basis that Tulsa’s current residents had nothing to do with the massacre and that the perpetrators of that violence had all since died. The lawsuit was filed in 2020. Public DomainGreenwood residents dig through the ruins of the Gurley Hotel in the aftermath of the massacre. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams,” Fletcher testified in front of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in 2021, per CBS. None of the perpetrators of the massacre were ever prosecuted for their crimes. Up until her death, Fletcher was one of the few people still alive who could speak to the horrors of the massacre firsthand. Another survivor, Fletcher’s brother Hughes Van Ellis, died in October 2023 at the age of 102. With Fletcher’s passing, the only living survivor of the massacre is Lessie Benningfield Randle, who is also 111. “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home,” Fletcher wrote in her memoir. “I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.” After learning about the death of Viola Ford Fletcher, read the often untold story of the 1919 Elaine Race Massacre. Or, learn how the Brixton Riots forced Britain to have a national reckoning on race. The post Viola Ford Fletcher, The Oldest Living Survivor Of The Tulsa Race Massacre, Has Died At Age 111 appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Wikimedia CommonsA depiction of the Spanish galleon San José (center left) exploding during Wager’s Action in 1708. Deep beneath the Caribbean waters off the Colombian coast lies the Spanish galleon San José, a once-floating fortress that met its demise after being attacked and sunk by the British in 1708. At the time, the ship was said to be carrying a massive cargo of gold, silver, jewels, and other goods to help the Spanish king pay for his war against the British. The San José shipwreck and the fortune it was allegedly carrying have been estimated to be worth as much as $20 billion in today’s money. It isn’t hard to see why so many treasure hunters set their sights on exploring the San José, or why it earned its title as the “holy grail” of shipwrecks. Countless people and organizations conducted surveys to try and locate the San José shipwreck over the years. It wasn’t until 2015 that the Colombian Navy finally found the San José with the help of an autonomous underwater vehicle, but even with the discovery made, several questions remained. For starters, no one could agree on who actually owned the sunken galleon. Was it now Colombian property, given that they were the ones who found it? Or did it belong to Spain, since it was a Spanish vessel? Or how about Indigenous groups in Bolivia and Peru, who say that most of the treasure would’ve been plundered by the Spanish from mines in the Andes? Meanwhile, others have questioned whether the site should be explored much at all, considering it’s a war grave and hundreds of lives were lost when the ship went down. It’s also worth noting that it’s unclear exactly how much of the treasure has survived. Ultimately, the future of the San José shipwreck is uncertain, but its historical significance most definitely is not. A Ship Built For An Empire From the beginning, the San José was no ordinary vessel. Constructed around 1698, the imposing 64-gun galleon represented the pinnacle of Spanish naval engineering. Measuring about 150 feet long, with multiple decks, it was designed to handle warfare and transporting cargo — particularly the wealth flowing from New World mines back to Europe. For a long time, Spain’s American empire had been the envy of much of Europe. The Spanish took silver from present-day Bolivia, extracted gold from modern-day Colombia, and uncovered emeralds from the Andes. And the San José, the flagship of the Flota de Tierra Firme, was entrusted with possibly the most valuable cargo ever loaded onto a single ship. In May 1708, the San José departed from Portobelo, Panama, en route to Spain. It was said to be packed to the brim with treasure: chests of gold doubloons, bars of silver, bags of uncut emeralds, and other items. While the exact inventory has been lost to history, colonial records suggest the official cargo alone included up to 200 tons of precious metals and stones. Public DomainKing Philip V of Spain was supposed to receive the treasure loaded on the San José. That said, unofficial estimates — accounting for the contraband that Spanish colonists routinely smuggled on their ships to avoid taxation — suggest that the actual treasure may have been even greater. Some have even claimed it was “the biggest treasure in the history of humanity.” For Spain, though, the treasure was also a lifeline. The nation was embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession, a brutal conflict that had European powers battling over who would inherit the Spanish throne. “Britain and her allies wanted to curb the power of the French and Bourbons,” Ann Coats, an associate professor of maritime history at the University of Portsmouth in England, told HISTORY in an interview. “Britain’s Royal Navy needed to control the Atlantic to protect its merchant trade coming back from the Americas.” King Philip V of Spain desperately needed the treasure to pay his armies, finance his fleet, and maintain his claim to the crown. Essentially, this meant that the San José was carrying the fate of the empire when it departed. The Tragic Sinking Of The San José On June 8, 1708, as the San José and its fleet sailed near Cartagena, preparing to return to Europe, lookouts spotted their sails. A British squadron under Commodore Charles Wager had been lying in wait. The British forces, which were allied with other countries like the modern-day Netherlands against the rise of King Philip V in Spain, hoped to capture the presumed treasure onboard the San José and bring it back to England. Before long, Wager’s ships closed in. The San José moved to engage the British vessels, but what happened next isn’t entirely clear. According to Vanity Fair, commands were shouted, cannons were fired, and, as the air was thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder, disaster struck. Public DomainThe War of the Spanish Succession made the ship’s cargo invaluable to King Philip V. Suddenly, the San José’s powder magazine ignited amidst the ambush by the British. The explosion was catastrophic, and some witnesses claimed that the fireball could be seen for miles. The ship broke apart and plunged to the ocean floor in moments, taking with it approximately 600 souls — sailors, soldiers, and other passengers. Only 11 men survived. The loss of such a massive cargo of valuables at sea sent shockwaves throughout the Spanish empire. With the San José went not only hundreds of lives, but also the financial resources that Philip V needed to continue his war. Some historians have even argued that the sinking directly influenced the war’s outcome, eroding both Spain and France’s power. But in Spain and beyond, word also spread of the lost treasure, lying at the bottom of the ocean for anyone clever enough to discover it. Centuries Of Searching For Spain’s Lost Treasure For more than 300 years, the San José’s location remained one of maritime history’s greatest mysteries. Treasure hunters, both amateur and professional, combed the Caribbean searching for the legendary wreck and its fabled cargo — but the task was easier said than done. Imprecise 18th-century navigation records, strong currents, and the vast expanse of potential search areas all compounded the difficulty. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an American salvage company named Sea Search Armada claimed to have located the San José shipwreck and entered into agreements with the Colombian government. However, disputes over the terms of the agreements led to decades of litigation. Armada de ColombiaThe Colombian Navy said that they discovered the “true” San José shipwreck in 2015. As Ann Coats outlined in a piece for The Conversation, Sea Search Armada had proposed a 50-50 split of the proceeds from the wreckage, which Colombia would later contest. Eventually, in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that Colombia would be entitled to any artifacts that were declared to be “national cultural patrimony,” further complicating things. But the story took yet another turn in 2015, when the Colombian government called Sea Search Armada’s findings into question. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos announced that the Colombian Navy had found the “true” wreckage, with the help of an autonomous underwater vehicle, British maritime archaeology consultants, and the U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Of course, they released few details about the exact location of the wreckage due to concerns about looters. Given that estimates for the treasure’s value lay anywhere between $4 billion and $20 billion, it seemed as if the Colombian government had just earned itself a fortune. Except, it was unclear if they actually owned it. The Ongoing Battle For The San José Shipwreck Since 2015, a number of non-invasive campaigns have surveyed the sunken galleon, some details of which were published in the journal Antiquity in June 2025. Researchers reportedly found “hand-struck, irregularly shaped coins — known as cobs in English and macuquinas in Spanish,” which “served as the primary currency in the Americas for more than two centuries,” providing further evidence that this wreckage was the San José. While it’s still unclear exactly how much of the vessel’s presumed treasure survived following the attack by the British and centuries of lying on the ocean floor, images released of the shipwreck have shown some promising clues, like gold coins, blue and white porcelain, and bronze cannons. ARC-DIMAR 2022/Vargas Ariza et al. Antiquity 2025Coins from the San José shipwreck. Beyond the potential monetary value, though, the wreck holds significant archaeological value, making the debate of ownership even more complex. Colombia has claimed the San José, arguing that it was the Colombian Navy that discovered the wreckage and the vessel sank in Colombian waters. Spain, however, has countered that the San José was a Spanish naval vessel, and it should remain Spanish property. Meanwhile, Indigenous groups from Bolivia and Peru say they should receive at least some of the vessel’s treasure because much of it was plundered by the Spanish from mines in the Andes. Throughout all of this, Sea Search Armada has maintained it discovered the wreck first and has contractual rights to a portion of its contents. Colombian PresidencyColombian President Gustavo Petro examining a cannon from the San José shipwreck. Yet others, including many archaeologists, think that the vessel should only be explored in a limited capacity on the ocean floor, considering the age of the treasure and the hundreds of lives lost when the ship went down. The Colombian government has expressed interest in raising the wreckage and putting its contents on public display in a museum, but questions about recovery, preservation, and ownership are still somewhat unresolved. As of November 2025, only a handful of artifacts have been recovered from the San José, including a cannon, a porcelain cup, and coins. For the time being, the San José itself remains on the ocean floor, its presumed treasure at least partly intact and its ultimate fate uncertain. After reading about the San José shipwreck, see more famous shipwrecks from history. Then, go inside some frightening stories of ghost ships. The post Inside The Sinking Of The Spanish Galleon <em>San José</em> — And Why It’s Considered The ‘Holy Grail’ Of Shipwrecks appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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