TULSA, Okla. — Dozens of community members, city leaders, and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre gathered to honor victims found during the city’s Graves Investigation.
The memorial service paid special attention to C.L. Daniel, the first victim identified during this process.
“We will make this a consecrated place,” said Reverend Gerald Davis.
As Beyond Apology Commission Member Phil Armstrong sang ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ city leaders expressed their mission behind years of work during the 1921 Graves Investigation.
- Previous coverage >>> 4th Race Massacre Graves excavation concludes
“They are not numbers in a grave somewhere,” said Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum. “The goal of this was to put a face behind those numbers and to put a story behind that face.”
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More than 103 years after one of the worst events in Tulsa’s history, a small group gathered to show honor and respect to the victims who still need a name and the one whose family finally knows what happened to him.
“His mother died never knowing where her son was buried,” said Mayor Bynum. “His family never knew until our investigators found him and could call them and tell them.”
C.L. Daniel’s family sat in the front row. He is the first identified Tulsa Race Massacre victim from this investigation.
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1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victim identified after 103 years
In a letter, they pointed to his mother’s perseverance in offering the context that provided the World War I vet’s connection to the massacre in 1921.
“We’re so grateful that all of this work allowed up to tell Mr. Daniels' family where his remains are and now, they get to make the decision not someone in Tulsa County in 1921 but his family gets to make the decision where his remains rest for all of eternity,” said Mayor Bynum.
The ceremony was filled with descendants like Ellouise Cochrane. Her dad was cousins with Dick Rowland, whose arrest was the impetus for the massacre.
“He told my older siblings about what happened. They say he would start talking about it and then kind of go into this trance like gripped with trauma and unable to process,” said Cochrane.
She said watching the ceremony brought mixed emotions.
“Glad we can finally give the recognition that we deserve but at the same time the heavy heartedness of how could something like this happen in America,” said Cochrane.
As city leaders work to provide closure for families, a new monument stands tall at Oaklawn Cemetery. It signifies the work that’s been done, and they still need to do.
“To those who we place again at rest, we gather here to speak your names without yet knowing all of them,” said Historian Hannibal B. Johnson. “We gather here with love and reverence for you without fully knowing you.”
“We can heal from our trauma and that healing is necessary,” said Cochrane.
The city will install headstones for all of the exhumed burials found during the investigation in the coming weeks.
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