Tulsa race massacre: 19 bodies reinterred as protesters demand criminal investigation
Associated Press in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Sat 31 Jul 2021 14.33 EDT
The bodies of 19 people exhumed from an Oklahoma cemetery during a search for victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre were reburied in a closed ceremony on Friday, despite objections from protesters outside the cemetery.
“This is totally disgusting and disrespectful that those are our family members and we’re outside the gate instead of inside that gate where they are,” Celi Butler Davis, who said she was a descendant of a massacre victim, told KTUL-TV.
As many as 300 people were killed in Tulsa in 1921 when a white mob destroyed a prosperous neighbourhood known as Black Wall Street.
Others protesting Friday’s reburial called for a criminal investigation.
“The found remains – a skull with a bullet hole – that seems like you’re just beginning to get somewhere“ in investigating the deaths, state representative Regina Goodwin told KJRH-TV.
A forensic anthropologist, Phoebe Stubblefield, said a bullet was found with one set of remains that had trauma to the body, including to the head.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/31/bodies-tulsa-race-massacre-oklahoma-reinterred
