A team of scientists started the process of re-exhuming human remains Wednesday in their effort to identify people killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst known examples of white mob violence against Black Americans in U.S. history.
The team plans to dig up some of the 19 sets of remains, which were initially exhumed a year ago from Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, to test for more DNA.
Victims were never compensated, however a pending lawsuit seeks reparations for the three remaining known survivors of the violence. They are now more than 100 years old. Hellwig said work to develop a genealogy profile for the two remains with enough viable DNA is expected to start in about a week and could be completed within a few weeks, but efforts to identify the remains could take years.Intermountain Forensics also continues to seek people who believe they are descendants of massacre victims to provide genetic material to help scientists find potential matches.