A Timeline of the Tulsa Massacre Mass Graves Discovery on the 105th Commemoration

The spotlight returns to Tulsa this weekend, the 105th commemoration of the Race Massacre that decimated one of the nation’s most prominent displays of Black success. After a white mob swept through the area in 1921 burning and looting, hundreds were killed and even more fled the area. Some of the dead were buried in mass graves in the southwest corner of Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery.

In 2019 – almost a century after the massacre – a ground penetrating radar survey detected the presence of remains. Months later in 2020, the City of Tulsa started physically digging for bodies and mass graves. 

Since the initial 2020 dig, the city has led multiple rounds of archaeological excavations. The first mass grave containing the remains of multiple massacre victims was found in October 2020. A larger, full-scale excavation and exhumation process began in the “Original 18” site, which is connected to a newspaper article that reported 18 bodies were being held at funeral homes and would be transported to Oaklawn Cemetery because their loved ones had not claimed their bodies due to the chaos following the massacre. Many of the residents who survived were also placed in internment camps, leading to displacement and scrutiny from whites.

The most recent multi-week excavation wrapped up in November 2025, which led to the discovery of dozens of additional unmarked graves.

Historians recall the Greenwood district in 1921, also dubbed “Black Wall Street,”  as an area with hundreds of Black-owned businesses, luxury hotels, theaters, and doctor’s offices. The area rose because economic discrimination created the need for independence, but the whites, who oversaw the system of oppression, became envious of the prosperity and sought to destroy the demonstration of collective determination.
Today, only one person is still alive who survived the massacre. Lessie Benningfield Randle is 111, and she continues to fight for justice and reparations for the victims and descendants of the residents of the Greenwood district.