She was one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31, 1921, when a white lynch mob attacked the courthouse where a black teenager was being held. Around 300 black people died, and thousands more lost their homes and workplaces to arson. Some people were burned alive. 40 square blocks of business and residential property were destroyed. When the mob marched through her family's neighborhood, burning houses and shooting people in the street, her mother hid her and her siblings under a dining-room table while their home was being ransacked. Her family survived the massacre.