3 exhumed Tulsa Race Massacre victims found with gunshot wounds

Three more victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, who were exhumed as part of the city's ongoing investigation into graves from the massacre, were found with gunshot wounds, city officials said Friday.

The three additional gunshot victims were exhumed along with eight others during the latest excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery, according to state archaeologist Dr. Kary Stackelbeck. Nearly 50 graves have been exhumed — including the most recent excavation — since officials in Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced the 1921 Graves Investigation almost six years ago.

In 2018, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said the city would reinvestigate the existence of possible mass graves from the massacre that killed hundreds of Black Americans. Experts believe that as many as 300 people were killed but only 26 death certificates were issued in 1921 and 21 of those victims were reportedly buried in Oaklawn Cemetery.

The recent findings mark the completion of the fourth round of excavations at Oaklawn Cemetery. City officials said experts have documented over 190 graves in Section 20 of the cemetery, of which only five had visible headstones on the ground before the investigation.

"The people that we are searching for, our fellow Tulsans, they’re not just names in history," Bynum said at a news conference on Friday. "These are our neighbors who were murdered in horrible ways."

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Largest number of trauma cases uncovered in grave investigation

The gunshot victims were exhumed from wooden caskets near the area where the body of C.L. Daniel — the first victim identified in the investigation — was discovered and identified through DNA genealogy last month, according to city officials.

The victims were not identified at Friday's news conference and were referred to by their burial numbers. Forensic anthropologist Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, who will remain on-site to conduct further analysis of all exhumed remains, said the victims sustained gunshot wounds on various parts of their bodies.

One victim suffered shotgun and bullet wounds, according to Stubblefield, and the second victim was shot with "remarkably different calibers of bullet(s)."

"Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons, meaning that those two individuals were shot with at least two different kinds of arms. We have the third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning," Stackelbeck said at Friday's news conference. "This is definitely our largest number of very obvious cases of trauma that we have uncovered during the course of a single field season."

1921 Graves Investigation

Tulsa launched the 1921 Graves Investigation "to help locate, identify and connect people today with those who were lost more than 100 years ago," according to the city's website.

As part of the project, a public oversight committee was established to "ensure transparency and community engagement" during the investigation. The committee includes descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre and leaders in Tulsa's Black community.

The city also gathered a team of historians and scholars to help provide historical context for the effort and to aid in the documentation of the work.

Four sites were identified as potential areas where victims of the massacre would be located: Oaklawn Cemetery, Newblock Park, another area near Newblock Park, and Rolling Oaks Memorial Gardens, formerly known as Booker T. Washington Cemetery. According to city officials, local newspaper reports from June 1921 indicated that 18 adult male victims were buried in Section 20 of Oaklawn Cemetery.

Investigators are searching for simple, wooden caskets of adult size that match various parameters, according to Stackelbeck. The criteria for the search stems from limited information from death certificates, newspaper articles, and funeral home records that suggested several adult male victims were "supposed to be buried in simple, wood coffins," Stackelbeck said in an update in September 2023.

Last month, a major discovery was made in the investigation, in which archeologists identified Daniel as the first victim of the massacre who was not listed in the Oklahoma Commission’s 2001 Report regarding the massacre. Daniel was a World War 1 U.S. Army Veteran who was later identified with DNA from his next of kin.

"C.L. Daniel was a veteran who served our country in World War I, who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and whose family did not know where he had been buried for the last 103 years," Bynum said in a statement last month.

1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

The Tulsa Race Massacre was a two-day-long massacre that occurred between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a white mob descended on Greenwood and burned, looted, and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in the once-thriving business district known as "Black Wall Street."

Historians have estimated that as many as 300 people were killed in the massacre. Although the true death toll remains unknown, experts continue to search for unmarked graves.

"Believed to be the single worst incident of racial violence in American history, the bloody 1921 outbreak in Tulsa has continued to haunt Oklahomans," according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. "By the time the violence ended, the city had been placed under martial law, thousands of Tulsans were being held under armed guard, and the state's second-largest African American community had been burned to the ground."

More than 100 years later, Tulsa had made progress in revitalizing Black Wall Street and reckoning with its violent history. In 2020, the Historic Greenwood Chamber of Commerce launched a $10 million campaign to restore Black Wall Street.

In addition to the 1921 Graves Investigation, the city has developed a plan that "ensures the social and economic benefits of redevelopment are experienced by Black Tulsans, by descendants of the Race Massacre and by future generations and their heirs."

Contributing: Julia Gomez and Camille Fine, USA TODAY; Alexia Aston, The Oklahoman