Oaklawn researchers reassess potential race massacre burial sites as search for remains continues

As workers completed digging a 70-foot test-site trench near a stand of crepe myrtles on the cemetery’s west side, scientists redeployed subsurface scanners and other equipment elsewhere on the grounds. At least two other areas of interest are known, in additional to several others around the city.

The expectation is to drill core samples in some of those areas on Monday, and from those determine how to proceed.

Mayor G.T. Bynum reiterated his intention to continue the search for lost remains.

“This is the early stage of a long-term commitment by the city of Tulsa,” Bynum said. “While it’s taken 99 years to get to this point, we’re further in this investigation than the city of Tulsa has ever been.

“It’s important to us as a city to let the descendants of these victims know that our commitment to this is long term. Even if (graves had been found) on Day 1 this week, it would still be a long-term investigation ... to try to match DNA with descendants,” he said.

State Archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said the geophysical information that helped lead researchers to the spot examined this week was proved accurate within the limits of the technology.

That data, collected last year through a series of subsurface scanning techniques, indicated a relatively large area of disturbed soil in a configuration that suggested a large burial site.

Added to that was the lack of any recorded burials in that area despite the cemetery being considered full for almost 100 years, and some oral tradition.

The researchers did find disturbed soil, but instead of covering human remains it appears to have been used to improve drainage in an area prone to flooding. On Friday morning, the team found the remains of an old road that had passed through the cemetery at one time.

Even as the likelihood of finding a burial place diminished, the decision was made to continue the trench as far south as possible to establish to the extent possible that no remains are in the target area.

While disappointing to some, the week’s work demonstrated how difficult the task at hand is and explained why Bynum continues to counsel patience.

“This is a multiyear project for us at the city of Tulsa,” he said.

Thirty-seven people, all men, are known to have been killed in the racial violence of May 31-June 1, 1921, but it is widely believed that the toll was probably higher, and perhaps much higher. Virtually from the moment the shooting stopped, whites and blacks alike repeated stories of bodies being disposed of in all manner of ways and places.

At Oaklawn, researchers are interested in an area near the south fence where a white man named Clyde Eddy said in the 1990s that he had seen, as a young boy, excavation equipment and bodies in packing crates.

They are also interested in two markers bearing the names of massacre victims Reuben Everett and Eddie Lockard. Researchers think others killed in the fighting might be nearby, but it is not even clear whether Everett and Lockard are buried beneath the stones.

Some have questioned spending tax dollars on such a speculative mission, but Bynum said it’s a matter of principle.

“If your family member was murdered, you would want the city to do everything it could to determine what happened to them,” he said. “That’s a basic, fundamental covenant we have with the city government. One of the great tragedies of this situation is that it took the city so long to live up to that. All of this work we’re doing right now? The city of Tulsa should have been doing in 1921.

“It’s important ... not to look at this as some sort of historical, academic exercise. This is very much an investigation to find Tulsans who were murdered,” he said.

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Gallery: Test excavations in Tulsa Race Massacre mass graves search