Second search for Tulsa Race Massacre victims set to begin

A second search for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre will begin on Oct. 19

Tulsa Massacre Mass Graves (Tulsa World)

A second search for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre will begin on Oct. 19, the city said Tuesday.

Excavation will take place in two sections of Oaklawn Cemetery, where two other areas were searched during the summer, with no victim remains found.

The next areas to be searched are one where a boy said he saw Black people being buried shortly after the massacre and another where old funeral home records indicate that 18 Black people were buried.

Ground-penetrating radar previously found anomalies indicating possible graves in both areas.

During a September meeting of the city committee overseeing the search, University of Florida forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield said she believes human remains will be found.

Stubblefield, who has helped orchestrate the search, said any remains that are found will be left where they are while investigators look for clues as to whose remains they are and how those people died.

The violence in 1921 left as many as 300 dead on the city's Black Wall Street. It happened two years after hundreds of African Americans across the country were killed by white mobs during what became known as the “Red Summer.”