“We can’t let the past drag us along; we have to take those steps to move forward,” she said. “What are the next things we do to unify and keep each other strong?”

For many, the answer is reparations, which survivors and their descendants have been demanding for years.

With the three remaining survivors all over 100 years old, the immediate need for reparations was obvious to many in attendance Monday morning. “Having that experience, that tragedy, that memory, and just wanting them to have some kind of peace,” said LaBrenda Washington Hutchinson, 35, who is from Tulsa.

While many in the crowd were Black Tulsans, either descendants of the massacre victims or people whose families have lived with its ramifications for years, other attendees had traveled to the city to bear witness.

“We can only get one 100-year celebration in a lifetime,” said Lashadion Shemwell, 34, who’d traveled to Tulsa for the first time from Houston with his mother, aunt, uncle, fiancé, and six children. “It was important for us to bring our children and be a part of it and just learn this history, because history repeats itself.”

The family was dressed in white T-shirts that read, “Black Wall Street — Never Forget 05/31/1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma.” His youngest daughter, 3-year-old Jurnee, met and spoke at the event with Mother Fletcher, the oldest survivor.

“To be able to pass on that generational resiliency and have it go from one generation to the next and be part of that,” said Shemwell, “it’s heartwarming and heartbreaking to remember all that took place here 100 years ago.”