Search for mass burials in Tulsa has its critics

TULSA — For many Tulsans, the search for perhaps hundreds of bodies dumped into mass graves in 1921 has a major flaw, specifically, that searchers may simply be looking in the wrong place.

Monday, as the search began in earnest with ground-penetrating radar at Oaklawn Cemetery just east of downtown, leaders of the African-American community and other concerned with finally dealing with Tulsa's violent history spoke urgently about the need to find answers.

Among them, State Rep. Regina Goodwin and Rev. Robert Turner, Pastor of Vernon AME Church.

[Hear our KRMG IN-DEPTH REPORT on the search for mass graves in Tulsa HERE, or use the audio player below]

Decades of stories passed on from survivors and the families of victims point to eyewitness accounts of flatcars, piled with bodies, which pulled up on railroad tracks along the western side of Oaklawn.

Chief Egunwale Amusan has done extensive research, including interviews with any number of citizens white and black, who told a similar story.

The witnesses, he says, “told me that the brought flats on the rail system, on the Midland Valley tracks along Oaklawn Cemetery, dug a huge trench right along where the highway is now, and just rolled hundreds of bodies.”

“Nobody's disputing should we be looking here,” Rep. Goodwin told KRMG. “What we're saying is why are you not going... where folks are talking about 'bones were found.'”

But the area to which those accounts point is now underneath Highway 75 along the east leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop, making a search difficult and excavation all but impossible.

Goodwin says there's also strong evidence for possible mass burials at Crown Hill Cemetery in north Tulsa, a site that's not currently on the list of sites to be searched.

She, and Turner, both worry about preconceived notions on the part of the researcher heading up the search, Betsy Warner.

“My concerns are we have too much oral history, and too many eyewitnesses through the decades that have absolutely contradicted what she's sharing with people,” Goodwin said. “So my thing is, if we're going to be open-minded, if we're going to be factual, if we're going to be accurate, we need to rely on the eyewitnesses who lived through this.  We need to rely on the folks who've really, really done the research, and not brought their particular bias to the table.”

Warner, whose father conducted a prior search for evidence of mass burials some 22 years ago, says she's basing her efforts on extensive research, including eyewitness statements, but admits there's a lack of records in many cases.

She does believe Oaklawn holds promise as a possible site for undocumented burials.