AUGUST 3, 2024:
JULY 10, 2023:
UNDATED (AP)- An Oklahoma judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dashing an effort to obtain some measure of legal justice by survivors of the deadly racist rampage. Judge Caroline Wall on Friday (July 7, 2023) dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit trying to force the city and others to make recompense for the destruction of the once-thriving Black district known as Greenwood. The order comes in a case by three survivors of the attack. They are all now over 100 years old and sued in 2020 with the hope of seeing what their attorney called “justice in their lifetime.”
Extended version:
JULY 31, 2021:
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The bodies of 19 people exhumed from a Tulsa cemetery during a search for Tulsa Race Massacre victims have been reburied while protesters objected outside the cemetery. The remains were exhumed in June during a search for mass graves of potential victims of the 1921 massacre. City spokesperson Michelle Brooks said Friday’s reburial was required as part of the plan that allowed them to be removed. Several of the approximately two dozen protesters said they are descendants of massacre victims and should have been allowed to attend the ceremony that was closed to the public. Investigators have not confirmed any of the remains were massacre victims.
JUNE 4, 2021:
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The City of Tulsa is resuming its search of a cemetery for possible victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Crews on Wednesday worked to define the boundaries of a mass-grave site that was discovered in October at the Oaklawn Cemetery. State archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said crews were able to locate three of the four corners of the mass-grave site and determined there are three additional burials in the area. The search began last year, and researchers in October found at least 12 sets of remains in coffins. Stackelbeck has said they’ve estimated as many as 30 bodies could be in the site.
MAY 27, 2021:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — As the U.S. marks 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre, researchers, including descendants of Black victims of the violence, are preparing to resume a search for remains believed to have been hastily buried in mass graves. Although many details about the two terrifying days in 1921 eventually came to light after decades of shared silence by perpetrators and victims alike, some basic facts remain unknown. Among them is the true death toll and the names of many of the Black people who died at the hands of a white mob. The state pegged the death toll at 36, including 12 white people. But most historians who have studied the event estimate it to be between 75 and 300.
OCTOBER 19, 2020:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A second search for Black victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is to begin in a cemetery. Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield is assisting in the search and is a descendant of a massacre survivor. She said the goal is to identify victims, notify their descendants and shed light on the violence. A similar excavation in the cemetery in July found no remains. The violence happened on May 31 and June 1 in 1921, when white residents attacked Tulsa’s Black Wall Street. An estimated 300 were killed and 800 wounded. The area that had been a cultural and economic mecca for African Americans was decimated.
OCTOBER 6, 2020:
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A second search for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre will begin on Oct. 19, 2020. The city said Tuesday that two more sections of Oaklawn Cemetery will be searched. Two other areas were searched during the summer, but no victim remains were found. The next areas to be searched are one where a boy said he saw Black people being buried shortly after the massacre and another where old funeral home records indicate that 18 Black people were buried. Ground-penetrating radar previously found anomalies indicating possible graves in both areas. The violence in 1921 left as many as 300 dead on the city’s Black Wall Street.
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