Tulsa, Oklahoma - Justice Department officials met with survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on Thursday in a historic first step towards ending a century-long wait for accountability and reparations.

Attorneys for Viola Ford Fletcher (110) and Lessie Benningfield Randle (109), the last surviving victims of the horrific white supremacist massacre, as well as Texas Representative Al Green, revealed the first details of the meetings at a press conference.

They were joined by relatives of Fletcher and Randle, who have for years been demanding reparations and redress, only to see the state of Oklahoma repeatedly deny them.

That hasn't stopped them from keeping up the fight."Everyone wants actual accountability of the massacre," Justice For Greenwood founder and executive director Damario Solomon-Simmons told reporters. "They want those who perpetrated this harm that started in 1921 and continues to today to be held accountable."

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He thanked Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Kristen Clark for leading a first-ever federal review of the massacre, a milestone move announced by the DOJ at the end of September.

Rep. Green also announced his plans to introduce legislation that would secure reparations for the two survivors.

Solomon-Simmons also read out a joint statement from Randle and Fletcher: "As the only living survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, we escaped the white mob that murdered our neighbors and reduced us to refugees, only to hear time and time again from Oklahoma's judicial system that there will never be a recourse for people like us."

"But history was made this week when the United States Justice Department came to Greenwood to hear our testimony, gather evidence, and officially survey the crime scene that has haunted us for over 100 years."

"We desperately needed this federal lifeline amid the state's and city's ongoing effort to gaslight us into our graves. To this day, secrets about the atrocity that we fled remain hidden in long-suppressed government documents and corporate records in historical archives and concealed in insurance company records."

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They added: "We pray that the DOJ will do its job and hold those accountable who perpetrated this unspeakable crime... We are weary, but God has brought us this far for a reason."

Tulsa and Oklahoma officials have for years stymied, delayed, and blocked a full reckoning with the events of May 31-June 1, 1921, during which white law enforcement officers and deputized civilians murdered, bombed, and lynched their way through 40 square-blocks of the flourishing community of Greenwood – at the time referred to as Black Wall Street.

Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle were left as the only two survivors of the massacre after Hughes Van Ellis, who was also a World War II veteran, passed away in October last year at the age of 102.

In June, the state's Supreme Court dealt a final blow to their lawsuit against the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Oklahoma National Guard, and other defendants.

The Justice Department hopes to have the investigation "finalized by the end of the year," and is asking the public to send in information or materials that may have been previously neglected.