According to an update from the state archaeologist, there are at least 24 graves in a cemetery in the city that may be related to the 1921 race massacre.
More than 40 graves have been discovered in the Oaklawn Cemetery in the city, and investigators believe there may be more. According to modern estimates, up to 300 people were killed in the outbreak of racial violence, but reports from the time likely downplayed the severity of the conflict.
According to Oklahoma's state archaeologist, Kary Stackelbeck, there were 12 adult graves in one trench and five more in another. Three of the burials appeared to be of children.
She said in an online video that the graves will now be investigated by hand to learn more about the coffins they hold.
RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...
The human remains they decide to take to a forensic laboratory for further study will be "stabilized" so they can be transported more safely, because the researchers are making a photogrammetric model that uses digital photography to create a detailed three-dimensional rendering. Clergy and members of the Public Oversight Committee are watching the removal.
Doctors use race as a factor in their treatment methods.
Stackelbeck said that the remains will be reburied after the laboratory tests are finished.
The latest excavations at the Oaklawn Cemetery began in October and are expected to be completed in November.
In 1997 the Oklahoma legislature created a commission to investigate the 1921 race massacre in which a young black man was accused of attacking a young white woman.
Police arrested the man. Later that day armed mobs of white and Black people clashed outside the courthouse where Rowland was being held, sparking a race riot that was fed by deep racial tension between the city's Black and white communities.
Up to 300 people were killed when the "Black Wall Street" neighborhood of the city was burned down the next day.
The image is the first of three.
After the "Red Summer" of 1919, in which white supremacists attacked Black people in several U.S. cities, there was an outbreak of racial violence in Oklahoma. The National World War I Museum and Memorial estimates that hundreds of Black people were killed in the unrest.
The Oklahoma State commission acknowledged the massacre and recommended that the Black community be compensated. According to the Oklahoma statute accepting the report, the report did not make law.
The Oaklawn Cemetery, where possibly hundreds of victims may have been buried, has been the focus of the investigations by the city.
Many of the massacre victims were buried there in a secret.
Several locations within the cemetery have been identified with ground-penetrating radar scans.
There is an area called The Canes near the Arkansas River that has been identified as being disturbed by radar scans. The investigations into the massacre are still going on and there are plans for more excavations.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
