Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.
Finding Unity in History: Our Community Process Recovering Victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Phoebe R. Stubblefield, Director of the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory, University of Florida
On June 1,1921, the unincorporated community of Greenwood Oklahoma was systematically looted and burned by a white mob. The conflict derived from an attempt by the mob to lynch a young African American man, Dick Rowland, who had been accused of assaulting a white woman. Thirty-nine deaths were documented by death certificates, but the actual number of deaths is unknown due to the period of martial law which ended the rioting, poor documentation, and focus on recovery. Twenty African American adult males were buried in the Tulsa city cemetery, Oaklawn, in unmarked graves. In 2020 former mayor GT Bynum initiated the investigation, which continues today, to recover these and any other victims of the race massacre and return them to their families. Our team of anthropologists have recovered over 50 individuals from unmarked graves in Oaklawn, and forensic analysis has identified six with gunshot wounds that make them potential victims of the riot. Collaboration with our historians, geneticists, and genealogists resulted in the first victim identification in July 2024, of Pvt. CL Daniel. Further identifications of victims and community members have followed.
Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Phoebe R. Stubblefield is the director of the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory, the forensic anthropology laboratory at the University of Florida. A fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences since 2007, she served two terms as chair of the Anthropology Section. Previously director of the Forensic Science Program at the University of North Dakota, she created a trace evidence teaching laboratory, and assisted undergraduates with entry into the spectrum of forensic science careers. In the late nineties she joined the scientific consultants for the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, and now serves as the lead forensic anthropologist in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Investigation. In 2023 she was inducted as a fellow in Section H (Anthropology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, based on her contributions to the Tulsa Race Massacre Investigation.
Related Links (provided by the speaker)
https://www.cityoftulsa.org/1921GRAVES – The 2024 field reports are on this page. If you click the link, it downloads a LARGE pdf. Plan accordingly. Scroll further for updates on our genealogical process.
https://www.cityoftulsa.org/mayor/1921-graves-investigation/investigation-team-updates/ – A collection of community meetings from early in the investigation. The reports from the 2020-21 field season are linked near the bottom, again, a LARGE pdf if you click.
https://www.cityoftulsa.org/mayor/1921-graves-investigation/learn-more/ – Other literature. I recommend Mary Parrish’s book, at the bottom. She was an eyewitness. The modern version is called The Nation Must Awake. Also consider Scott Ellsworth’s chapter in Tulsa Race Riot: A report by the Oklahoma Commission…. It’s a better history than his book, Death In a Promised Land.