SEARCH RENEWED FOR TULSA VICTIMS
Roughly 300 Blacks believed killed in 1921 race massacre
A second excavation beg ins today at a cemetery in an effor t to f ind and identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and shed light on violence that left hundreds dead and decimated an area that was once a cultural and economic mecca for African Americans.
“I realize we can tell this story the way it needs to be told, now,” said Phoebe Stubblef ield, a forensic anthropolog ist at the University of Florida and a descendant of a sur vivor of the massacre who is assisting the search, told The Associated Press. “The stor y is no longer hidden. We’re putting the completion on this event.”
The violence happened on May 31 and June 1 in 1921, when a White mob attacked Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people and wounding 800 more while robbing and burning businesses, homes and churches.
“People, they were just robbed, White people coming in saying Black people had better proper ty than they had and that that was just not right,” said Stubblef ield, whose g reat-aunt Anna Walker Woods had her home burned and proper ty taken. “Burning, thieving, killing wasn’t enough. They had to prevent Black people from recovering.
“Personally, professionally, spiritually I have an investment in this,” said Stubblef ield, a Los Angeles native who said she is in her early 50s and learned of the massacre and her ancestor, who she doesn’t recall ever meeting, in the 1990s.
The two locations to be searched are i n Oaklawn Cemeter y in nor th Tulsa, where a search for remains of victims ended without success in July, and near the Greenwood District where the massacre took place.
The earlier excavation was done in an area identif ied by ground-penetrating radar scans as appearing to be a human-dug pit indicative of a mass grave. It turned out be a f illed-in creek, said Mayor G.T. Bynum, who first proposed looking for victims of the violence in 2018 and later budgeted $100,000 to fund it af ter previous searches failed to f ind victims.
The massacre has been depicted in recent HBO shows “Watchmen” and “Lovecraft County.”
It also received renewed attention af ter President Donald Trump selected Tulsa as the location for a June rally amid a national reckoning over police brutality and racial violence.