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City Says Oaklawn Mass Grave Exhumation On Track For June 1 Start

City of Tulsa
A team of researchers conducts a test excavation at the site of a mass grave in Oaklawn Cemetery on Oct. 20, 2020.

A city official said Thursday that Tulsa is on track to begin an exhumation on June 1st of remains discovered in a mass grave at Oaklawn Cemetery last year in a continued search for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Deputy Mayor Amy Brown made the remarks during a Thursday evening meeting of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Graves Investigation Public Oversight Committee, held virtually. 

Brown said the city was in the process of reviewing nine bids from vendors who submitted proposals to assist in archaeological work on the dig. 

Brown also said the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey would be assisting in both the Oaklawn exhumation and a ground-penetrating radar search of Rolling Oaks Cemetery, another location where massacre victims are thought to have been buried.

June 1st would mark 100 years to the day from the second day of the racist attack against Black Tulsans by white mobs which left as many as 300 dead and most of Greenwood destroyed.

Chris joined Public Radio Tulsa as a news anchor and reporter in April 2020. He’s a graduate of Hunter College and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, both at the City University of New York.
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