Excavation could shed light on 1921 massacre
Tulsa is searching for the remains of victims of the 1921 massacre of Black residents.
Archeologists plan to excavate part of a cemetery in Tulsa, Okla., to see if it holds the remains of Black residents slaughtered by white mobs during a massacre in 1921.
The mayor said this past week that it was an “unprecedented” step to address one of the worst instances of racist violence in U.S. history, an episode that for decades was rarely acknowledged in public by city leaders.
The archeologists plan to dig up a small section of the Oaklawn Cemetery, east of downtown, where they found evidence last year of a possible mass grave site. The excavation “would establish the presence or absence of human remains, determine the nature of the interments and obtain data to help inform the future steps in the investigation, including appropriate recovery efforts,” the city said in a statement.
“We are proposing this intermediate step to obtain just a sample and additional information — essentially a proof of concept, if you will — to demonstrate: ‘Do we, in fact, have human remains here? And do they seem to be consistent with race massacre victims?’ ” said Kary Stackelbeck, the state archeologist of Oklahoma.
Previous investigations have identified possible locations for the mass graves and compiled historical evidence of the massacre, which for decades was rarely mentioned in textbooks or publicly acknowledged by white city officials. The excavation, which is slated for April, raises the tantalizing possibility that, after nearly a century of shame and inattention, the bodies of at least some of the victims could finally be found.
“This step is unprecedented,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said in an interview.
The effort still needs to clear some procedural hurdles, including the notification of family members of people whose graves are near the site, Stackelbeck said. But Bynum said he was confident the excavation would go forward.
The rampage started May 31,1921, after an accusation that a Black man had sexually assaulted a white woman. Charges were later dropped, and it was most likely the man had tripped and accidentally stepped on the woman’s foot, according to a 2001report from the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
As many as 300 people were killed, and a whole section of the city destroyed, including more than 1,200 homes. Witnesses said they saw bodies being dumped in some parts of the city.
Radar investigation in the late1990s appeared to suggest the existence of mass graves, the report said. At Oaklawn, the investigation found an “anomaly” that “bears all the characteristics of a dug pit or trench with vertical walls.”