Human remains found 99 years after Tulsa massacre
Test excavation will continue at cemetery
Experts searching for victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre have found at least one set of human remains, Oklahoma’s archaeological team announced Tuesday.
Archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said at a news conference that the remains were found more than 3 feet underground in a wooden coffin at Oaklawn Cemetery. She added that there is a possibility a second set of remains was found at a separate location.
“We are still in the process of analyzing those remains to the best of our ability,” Stackelbeck said. “We don’t have a whole lot of details.”
The remains were found in an area known as the “Original 18,” where funeral home records show at least 18 Black massacre victims were buried. It’s not yet known whether the remains are of a victim of the massacre, Stackelbeck said.
“We are still analyzing what has come out of the ground at this point in time and so no, unfortunately we have not been able to assess the trauma at this point in time, or potential trauma,” that would indicate the person was among the massacre victims, she said.
Stackelbeck said experts don’t plan to intentionally exhume the bodies. After an examination of the remains, they will be returned to the coffin and reburied. The test excavation is expected to take up to a week.
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, who first proposed looking for victims of the violence in 2018 and later budgeted $100,000 to fund the search, said experts would attempt to identify the remains and find any descendants of victims who are identified.
“This will be done through forensic analysis of the remains, and by comparing them with funeral home and death certificate records,” Bynum said in a statement. “We will continue to take this investigation one step at a time, wherever it may lead.”
The excavation at Oaklawn Cemetery in north Tulsa resumed for a second time Monday after researchers failed to find victims during a search in July. Research suggests the location could hold an unmarked mass grave, and geophysi
cal survey work previously indicated that the location had an underground anomaly, which signaled the possibility of a grave shaft
The violence occurred May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a white mob attacked Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 mostly Black people and wounding 800 more while robbing and burning businesses, homes and churches.
The massacre – which occurred two years after what is known as the “Red Summer,” when hundreds of African Americans died at the hands of white mobs in violence around the U.S. – has been depicted recently in the HBO shows “Watchmen” and “Lovecraft County.”