Exhumations resume for DNA to ID Tulsa Race Massacre victims

By KEN MILLER
Associated Press

At a cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, work is underway to remove bodies from their graves for a second time in an effort to identify victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Historians say the white mob violence that targeted Black Americans in 1921 left between 75 and 300 people dead. Work to exhume the remains began Wednesday as part of a renewed effort to gather more DNA. A search for the graves of massacre victims began in 2020 and resumed last year with nearly three dozen coffins recovered. Two of the 14 sets of remains sent for testing so far have enough DNA to begin sequencing and start developing a genealogy profile.