Search finds possible graves of Tulsa Race Massacre victims

[Judi Lynn]

KEN MILLER, Associated Press
Updated 5:43 pm CST, Tuesday, December 17, 2019

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Scientists surveying a cemetery and a homeless camp in Tulsa, Oklahoma, found pits holding possible remains of black residents killed nearly 100 years ago in a race massacre, investigators have revealed.

In a report presented Monday night to the 1921 Race Massacre Graves Investigation Public Oversight Committee, Oklahoma Archaeological Survey scientists Scott Hammerstedt and Amanda Regnier said forensic archaeologists scanning with ground-penetrating radar at the sites in north Tulsa found anomalies in the ground that they think should be excavated and tested further.

. . .

The violence in 1921 left as many as 300 dead on Tulsa's Black Wall Street, two years after the summer of 1919 when hundreds of African Americans across the country were slain at the hands of white mob violence during the "Red Summer." It was branded "Red Summer" because of the bloodshed and amounted to some of the nation's worst white-on-black violence.

The recent findings in Tulsa come at a time when more communities and institutions are trying to reconcile these past atrocities.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Search-finds-possible-graves-of-Tulsa-Race-14913935.php

[Judi Lynn]

1. A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

An Oklahoma lawyer details the attack by hundreds of whites on the thriving black neighborhood where hundreds died 95 years ago

The manuscript, "The Tulsa Race Riot and Three of Its Victims," by B.C. Franklin was recovered from a storage area in 2015 and donated to the African American History Museum. (NMAAHC, Gift from Tulsa Friends and John W. and Karen R. Franklin)

By Allison Keyes
SMITHSONIAN.COM
MAY 27, 2016

The ten-page manuscript is typewritten, on yellowed legal paper, and folded in thirds. But the words, an eyewitness account of the May 31, 1921, racial massacre that destroyed what was known as Tulsa, Oklahoma’s “Black Wall Street,” are searing.

“I could see planes circling in mid-air. They grew in number and hummed, darted and dipped low. I could hear something like hail falling upon the top of my office building. Down East Archer, I saw the old Mid-Way hotel on fire, burning from its top, and then another and another and another building began to burn from their top,” wrote Buck Colbert Franklin (1879-1960).

The Oklahoma lawyer, father of famed African-American historian John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), was describing the attack by hundreds of whites on the thriving black neighborhood known as Greenwood in the booming oil town. “Lurid flames roared and belched and licked their forked tongues into the air. Smoke ascended the sky in thick, black volumes and amid it all, the planes—now a dozen or more in number—still hummed and darted here and there with the agility of natural birds of the air.”

Franklin writes that he left his law office, locked the door, and descended to the foot of the steps.

“The side-walks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls. I knew all too well where they came from, and I knew all too well why every burning building first caught from the top,” he continues. “I paused and waited for an opportune time to escape. ‘Where oh where is our splendid fire department with its half dozen stations?’ I asked myself. ‘Is the city in conspiracy with the mob?’”

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-lost-manuscript-contains-searing-eyewitness-account-tulsa-race-massacre-1921-180959251/

[appalachiablue]

2. K/R THanks for posting, a horrible event & era for the US.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Can't believe how well they hid the story from the country at large until quite recently.

Clearly it's nothing to be proud of, they went completely berserk when they thought they could get by with it. It would be WONDERFUL if the instigators of this atrocity could all be outed, even though they're probably all gone, made it to the grave without the sky falling on them first.

Thanks for taking the time.

[appalachiablue]

4. Yes, well hidden. Until 5-10 years ago I knew nothing of Tulsa,

and some other deadly conflicts listed in the wiki. I learned about the Wilmington, NC Riot in 1898 from Henry Louis Gates 'Reconstruction' PBS program last year. There was a lot of fear, racism, violence and political suspicion in the 'Red Summer' tragedy in 1919 and the 'First Red Scare' 1919-1920. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare

WIKI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

See also

Jaybird-Woodpecker War
Mass racial violence in the United States
Ocoee massacre
Rosewood massacre
Wilmington Insurrection of 1898
List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
Donald Byrd (born 1949), who choreographed a modern dance work, Greenwood, premiered by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater December 6, 2019, at City Center in New York. Byrd described his work as "theater of disruption" ... "it disrupts our thinking about things, especially, in particular, things around race." The dance performance addresses a 1921 racist mob attack in Tulsa.