City Of Tulsa Resumes 1921 Mass Graves Test Excavation

The City of Tulsa announced Monday that it would resume the test excavation for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Graves Investigation.

The test excavation will begin on July 13 at Oaklawn Cemetery, and is in partnership with the University of Oklahoma – Oklahoma Archaeological Survey (OAS), and the City's Public Oversight Committee.

The test excavation is expected to take 3-6 days. This process was expected to occur in March but was put on hold as the University of Oklahoma halted all fieldwork in response to COVID-19.

The test excavation is part of the process to determine the absence or presence of human remains, and therefore the feasibility of this location as a site of a mass grave.

Oaklawn Cemetery was identified as a potential site due to an initial geophysical investigation that signaled a large anomaly at this site. The city said teams will also conduct additional research in the coming months at Rolling Oaks Memorial Gardens and The Canes, where other such initial anomalies have been identified for further investigation.