City Of Tulsa Begins Test Excavation For Race Massacre Graves

The City of Tulsa will begin a test excavation and core sampling for graves of victims during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Mass Graves Oversight Committee members Kristi Williams and Greg Robinson agreed they hope this coming week will be the conclusion to an almost 20-year investigation.

“We pledge to our ancestors, to our community, to continue to search,” Robinson said.

Monday will begin the second excavation since July where it was done along the western edge of the cemetery. After crews searched for eight days, they were not able to find any human remains.

“We had ground penetrating radar that seemed to reveal a mass grave and we (are) now moving to the south, in the potter’s field,” Dr. Scott Ellsworth said.

Dr. Ellsworth, the Chair of the Physical Investigation Committee, said funeral home records and other documents for 1921 show that at least 18 identified and unidentified Black massacre victims were buried in Oaklawn.

If human remains are recovered during the second excavation, Dr. Ellsworth said the bodies will be kept in place until the city and the Public Oversight Committee decide what to do next.

“My family was here during the massacre,” Robinson said. “We know what was taken. We know the bodies that have not been found.”

 “They do deserve a decent burial and that’s just the beginning for justice,” Williams said.

Crews are expected to begin work at 7:30 a.m. each morning and end around 5:30 p.m. each day.

Dr. Ellsworth said the test excavation is expected to take up to one week.