Excavations at Oaklawn Cemetery in 2021.
Two sets of remains found last year at Oaklawn Cemetery have yielded enough DNA to possibly identify them by name and as victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
In 2018, the City of Tulsa announced they would reexamine the potential of graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in which a white mob looted and burned Tulsa’s Black Greenwood district, often referred to as Black Wall Street. During the years-long investigation, forensic anthropologists exhumed 19 human remains from a local cemetery thought to be victims of the massacre. Before reburying the bodies, scientists removed femurs and teeth from 14 victims.
In January, those samples were sent to Intermountain Forensics, a non-profit forensic DNA laboratory headed by Danny Hellwig.
In a Public Oversight Committee earlier this week, Hellwig said all 14 bone samples yielded no viable DNA, but the lab was successful in extracting enough DNA from 2 of 14 teeth.
Intermountain Forensics is now preparing those samples for genetic genealogy, and expects to upload files to GEDMatch and Family Tree DNA in mid-July/early-August. Depending on the matches generated, Hellwig suggested Tulsa community members submit their DNA to 23andMe and Ancestry.com in order to generate a larger pool of genealogical candidates.
The other 12 teeth samples returned mixed results ranging from almost enough DNA to none at all—but that doesn’t mean all is lost.
“We’re getting close on some samples, but we just don’t feel comfortable moving forward until we get above that threshold to feel confident that we’re going to give you a usable profile,” Hellwig said. “We’ve got two good samples and we’re really excited to move on in that process, but we’ve got a little bit more work to do until we build up the DNA in these other samples in the genetic genealogy process.”
In June 2021, the project’s lead forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, revealed the team located the remains of a Black male with a bullet lodged in his left shoulder. The team confirmed the bullet was not modern, nor was it of the Civil War era, giving even more credence to the possibility of the man being a Tulsa Race Massacre victim.
Unfortunately, Hellwig said at the meeting that samples from those remains yielded the second-lowest amount of viable DNA.
As the two samples undergo investigative genetic genealogy work, Intermountain Forensics will continue to work with experts to evaluate and identify further samples from the 12 remaining bodies that did not have enough DNA to move forward.
In the meantime, the project’s lead archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck updated the committee on the plans to expand fieldwork. Stackelbeck, Oklahoma’s state archaeologist, said the team would now like to move to Newblock Park and The Canes, as they have had a number of reports that indicate mass graves may be located there.
The next step in the investigation is to finalize the scope of work and conduct a geoarchaeological coring survey of the two areas, before recommendations for the continuance of fieldwork can be presented to the committee.
In terms of Oaklawn Cemetery, the team wants to expand excavations in Section 20, specifically focusing on exhuming male individuals interred in simple wood caskets with evidence of trauma.
At the committee meeting, City Council representatives confirmed the approval of Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum’s FY23 budget that includes $1 million for the 1921 Graves Investigation. The City of Tulsa has also applied for the Emmett Till Cold Case Grant to further support the project.