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Oaklawn Cemetery
- The remains were found at the Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, inside of a wood coffin and near an unmarked temporary grave marker about 3 feet underground, said Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck.
www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/us/tulsa-massacre-remains-found/index.html1921 Tulsa race massacre: Human remains found during ... - CNN
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Jun 8, 2021 · CNN — There are now 27 graves that have been uncovered at an excavation site for the remains of those killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre at Oaklawn Cemetery. That is 15 new burials...
Sep 30, 2023 · OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The latest search for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has ended with 59 graves found and seven sets of remains exhumed, according to Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck.
Jun 9, 2021 · The mass grave that was discovered in October is in a part of Oaklawn Cemetery that has been called the “Original 18” area, based on contemporary accounts that 18 Black victims of the...
- Overview
- No charges, many questions
- 'Novel circumstance'
“These are homicides that have to be investigated.” As many as 300 Black people were killed during the massacre—this mass grave may be connected to the 100-year-old crime.
Tulsa, OklahomaAlmost 100 years after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a team of archeologists and forensic anthropologists has unearthed a mass grave that may be connected to one of the worst incidents of racial terror against Black people in U.S. history.
The site, containing at least 12 wooden coffins, was uncovered last week in the Potters’ Field section of Oaklawn Cemetery, a city-owned cemetery located just blocks from the historic all-Black community of Greenwood, where as many as 300 Black people were killed during the massacre.
Brenda Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors, told reporters she was deeply moved when the team discovered a mass grave.
“I don’t believe my grandparents could have ever imagined this time in history,” said Alford, whose grandparents survived the massacre. “I am so honored to be here to witness this historical time that they could only have imagined.”
Oklahoma State Archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck described the burial site as “a large hole into which several individuals have been placed in coffins. This constitutes a mass grave.”
The Tulsa Race Massacre began on May 31, 1921, after a white mob tried to lynch Dick Rowland, a Black teenager who was falsely accused of attacking a young white woman operating an elevator in a downtown Tulsa store.
When a group of Black World War I veterans raced to the Tulsa courthouse to protect Rowland, a battle erupted between the veterans and the white mob. A shot was fired, a white man was hit, and chaos erupted. Hours later, a white mob descended on the nearby Black community of Greenwood.
Over the next 18 hours the white mob, including Tulsa police officers and members of the National Guard, shot Black people in cold blood, looting and burning houses. Witnesses said airplanes dropped turpentine onto houses and businesses.
By the time the rampage ended on June 1, Greenwood was reduced to smoldering ashes. More than 35 square blocks of the once prosperous business district, including more than 1,200 businesses, were destroyed. More than 10,000 Black people were without homes. (Remembering ‘Red Summer,’ when white mobs massacred Black people from Tulsa to D.C.)
According to witnesses and historians, city officials rounded up survivors into “concentration camps,” preventing many Black people from burying their loved ones. Survivors recounted seeing bodies of Black people dumped in the Arkansas River, piled onto trucks and trains, and buried in mass graves.
Although some historians believe more than 300 Black people were killed, there is no official count. Despite photographs and even postcards depicting white men standing over the bodies of Black people lying in the streets of Greenwood, no white person was ever charged.
Phoebe R. Stubblefield, a forensic scientist from the University of Florida who is working on the city’s physical investigation committee, told reporters in Tulsa that the next phase of the investigation would require permission from a judge to exhume human remains.
“We are working with colleagues in the medical examiner’s offices,” Stubblefield said. “We have to start an exhumation order, which requires a judge’s decision. We want to appeal to a judge that we have grounds to disturb these unmarked individuals. It is an atypical circumstance to have a mass grave of this time.”
Stubblefield explained they are not trying to solve a legal question “with currently living suspects.” Instead, they are investigating a nearly 100-year-old crime. “These are homicides that have to be investigated,” Stubblefield said. “How to pursue an investigation when there is no one to charge is a novel circumstance.”
Before unidentified individuals can be exhumed, a judge needs to take the place of their next of kin, Stubblefield explains. “We don’t know their next of kin. Remember, we are disturbing them, but for a good cause.”
May 26, 2021 · Dozens, if not hundreds, were killed. Thousands were injured. Homes and businesses were looted and burned to the ground. Within 16 hours the area had been obliterated.
May 27, 2021 · Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield carries a tray of items found at Oaklawn Cemetery during a test excavation in the search for possible mass graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre...
Nov 2, 2022 · Tulsa, Okla., city officials announced on Monday that 17 adult-sized graves were uncovered at an excavation site in the Oaklawn Cemetery and another four were found on Tuesday, including...
