DNA breakthroughs in the Tulsa Race Massacre invite new possibilities—and old questions
DNA breakthroughs in the Tulsa Race Massacre invite new possibilities—and old questions
This month marks 103 years since an armed white mob in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killed hundreds of Black residents and burned their prosperous community to the ground.
By Ade Adeniji, Prism
This story was originally published at Prism.
This month marks 103 years since an armed white mob murdered Black residents and burned down their promising and prosperous Oklahoma community, known as America’s Black Wall Street. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst acts of racial terrorism to take place in the U.S., and the last remaining survivors are still seeking justice.
Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, and Viola Ford Fletcher, 110, went to the Oklahoma Supreme Court last month to appeal the 2023 decision by an Oklahoma judge to dismiss a 2020 lawsuit filed by survivors against the city of Tulsa. The lawsuit sought reparations for injury, public nuisance, and other damages. The third plaintiff in the suit, Fletcher’s younger brother, Hughes Van Ellis, died last fall at the age of 102.
Reparations are just one component in the ongoing fight for justice for the hundreds of Black residents who were murdered or otherwise had their homes burned down by a white mob in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa in 1921. Last April, a group of researchers working to identify victims of the massacre announced that they completed DNA sequencing for six sets of human remains from the local Oaklawn Cemetery, where bodies of Black Wall Street residents are believed to be buried.
Since that April 2023 announcement, nearly 50 people have contacted the genealogy team to participate in the identification project, which is now reaching out to descendants of the family lines.
Launched a few years ago by the city of Tulsa, the 1921 Graves Investigation aims to get a full account of the massacre. The city tapped the Utah-based nonprofit DNA testing laboratory Intermountain Forensics to test using forensic genealogy, which combines DNA analysis with traditional genealogy research.
Intermountain Forensics Director of Laboratory Development Danny Hellwig calls these new tools a “paradigm shift” for the forensic community and said they could bring some closure to descendants of the race massacre by confirming their ancestors’ involvement in the tragedy. Notably, the technology can also be applied to other mass grave projects across the U.S.
But with the promise of this technology comes important questions. How does this science actually work? What is the team doing to build trust on the ground and encourage people to participate? Most importantly, what does Black Tulsa think about these efforts?
A groundbreaking lab
Hellwig says Intermountain Forensics wasn’t initially sure how well this technology would apply to Tulsa Race Massacre victims. Forensic science helped unravel the story of 9/11 victims, for example, because there was a better understanding of who was missing. Relatives provided DNA samples, which then easily matched up to samples that were taken from remains. But the situation in Tulsa is different.
“We have no idea who and where and when these race massacre victims could be associated with,” Hellwig said.
The process to unravel these details started at Oaklawn Cemetery, the oldest existing cemetery in Tulsa, where there is strong evidence that at least some victims were buried. The space is about a mile away from the 100 block of Greenwood Avenue—once the crown jewel of Black Wall Street. The area once housed about 70 Black-owned businesses, including four hotels, eight doctors, nine restaurants, and two newspapers, including The Oklahoma Sun. Also on the avenue were investigative journalist Mary E. Jones Parrish’s technical school and the behemoth Williams Dreamland Theatre that could seat up to 750 people.
At Oaklawn, archeologists and anthropologists retrieved bones and teeth and pulled DNA out of the samples, which were then run through a DNA sequencer. This century-old genetic information is then turned into a genetic genealogy profile that is uploaded to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA, two databases that allow comparisons to unidentified remains.
The process continues with Alison Wilde, the director of forensic investigative genetic genealogy at Intermountain Forensics, who says that of the two dozen or so sets of remains that have been exhumed from the cemetery so far, only a handful of DNA remains have made it past Hellwig to her. Her team aims to identify remains by comparing them to DNA databases. But while the DNA test market in the U.S. is huge, with some 37 million at-home tests sold in total, Wilde and her team can’t rely on giants like Ancestry.com or 23andMe. Instead, they must lean on smaller databases like GEDMatch that allow for the comparison of unidentified remains.
“If anyone at GEDMatch or Family Tree DNA is a descendant of one of those six burials or a really close relative, it will be really obvious because they will share a significant amount of DNA,” Wilde explained.
So far, no matches have been made. But Wilde says they’ve found what she calls “valuable DNA relatives,” which can lead them closer to next of kin. When the 1921 Graves Investigation made its initial announcement that it completed DNA sequencing for six sets of human remains, it listed surnames and locations of interest, including in North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia—a reminder that the impact of this history spans many states and likely the entire country.
“We don’t have that list at all with who died in the race massacre. We got your confirmed deaths. But there’s a whole lot more … so we actually have to start with the largest pool possible—the U.S.,” added Deborah Dilley, Intermountain Forensics’ executive director.
Community connections
Dilley joined the organization back in early 2022. She says it’s been a long road for Tulsa to finally confront the history of the massacre.
“There were attempts by the local Black community in Tulsa to have more public discussions about this around the 50th anniversary,” Dilley said, adding that the momentum has only built in the years since.
While previous mayors made limited apologies, Dilley says current Mayor G.T. Bynum is more focused on action. Still, as a veteran nonprofit leader who’s worked in marginalized communities in Utah doing victim services, Dilley knew early on that the Intermountain Forensics team would have to work to make connections on the ground—especially because the all-white team came from out-of-state.
“There was just no way you were going to go into a community and ask for DNA without even trying to make friends,” she said.
Dilley started doing outreach, sending a Hail Mary message to Scott Ellsworth, a prominent Tulsa Race Massacre historian. To her surprise, a reply landed in her inbox a few minutes later. Ellsworth helped Dilley navigate the different stakeholders on the ground and served as a kind of mentor, making introductions to vital organizations like the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and the Greenwood Cultural Center, both of which are near Oklahoma State University.
Dilley explained that during each conversation she had with someone in the community, she would ask who else she should speak to. Many conversations with community stakeholders have been positive, she said. Others have been a challenge as she and her team build trust and relationships on the ground. Still, she’s hopeful she can continue making inroads with the local Black faith community.
Hellwig said he has experienced similar challenges. However, as the process has continued, more people have been willing to help.
“Let’s be real: The Black community has been victimized by this type of testing in the past,” Hellwig said. “So I’m completely cognizant of the fact that there is a trust bridge to begin with there.”
Black Americans and other people of color are underrepresented in genetic studies, databases, and the reference genome. Even certain DNA tests, including one that predicts susceptibility to different diseases, is less accurate for non-whites.
The team emphasizes that participation in the 1921 Graves Investigation is a personal choice and that participants can provide their DNA and choose the level of privacy they want.
Dilley said she often finds herself thinking about what lies ahead. When she was in Tulsa for the April 2023 press conference, she took photos at the event and stepped back to observe the residents and reporters in attendance. Some present had spent years following developments. When Wilde announced the names that emerged as a result of the DNA sequencing, Dilley said the pressure in the room changed.
“All of a sudden, everything got very, very real,” she said.
Dilley is speaking to city officials about what accountability and healing may look like for the Tulsa community. She believes these conversations need to happen now, before the investigation begins identifying descendants of people who were murdered in the massacre.
A descendant speaks
“Every single issue in Tulsa is overshadowed by the great reckoning that has never come,” said Anneliese Bruner, the great-granddaughter of Tulsa survivor Parrish, in an interview with Prism.
Parrish was reading in her home when the Tulsa Race Massacre began on the evening of May 31, 1921. She wrote “Events of the Tulsa Disaster,” a firsthand account of the Tulsa Race Massacre that was re-released in 2021 as “The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921,” with an afterword written by Bruner and an introduction written by Tulsa Race Massacre historian Ellsworth.
Born in San Francisco, Bruner did not know about her family’s intimate connection to the Tulsa Race Massacre until she was in her 30s. One day, her father showed her Parrish’s book and asked her to do something with the written history. But Bruner didn’t step foot on Tulsa soil until 2021. “The fact that I had never been there is an interesting commentary on the fractured nature of my family, and many Black families overall,” she said.
As for the 1921 Graves Investigation, Bruner believes concerns from descendants over how the DNA may be used still loom over the researchers’ efforts. Chief among the worries are privacy and how genetic material might be used by law enforcement.
DNA analysis has the potential to bring new understandings to the horrific events that occurred in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood on May 31, 1921. But is the public ready for what researchers will find? Looking back, Bruner notes the slow evolution in how Americans have come to see the acts of terror. It wasn’t that long ago that most people referred to it as a “race riot.” In fact, “massacre” is a relatively new phrase used to describe the event, which came into more popular use with the release of HBO’s superhero series “Watchmen” largely based on Tulsa’s history of racist violence. Bruner says some of the reasons for initially calling it a riot were insidious, and others less so. Early on, using such a misnomer as “riot” allowed insurance companies to get off the hook from paying insurance damages for the properties that were razed by the violent white mob.
Vanessa Adams-Harris, outreach and alliance director at John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, said that there’s no real roadmap for reparations in Tulsa. “We’re a law-driven, written society. So if it’s not written in the law somewhere, how are you supposed to manage what that means? I don’t know any group that has actually gotten reparations without there being something written of how they were going to do that,” she said.
Bruner wonders what will happen if victims are actually identified. The discovery could alter history. “It would be absolute confirmation that they, the powers that be, took every measure to cover it up. [More than 100] years later this is still explosive stuff,” she said.
And while the investigation puts Black Americans under the microscope, Bruner wonders if researchers should set their focus in other directions, too—namely toward Tulsa’s white community. “There are still white families who, in their family histories, perhaps in their attics or their basements, have artifacts and know what happened,” Bruner said. “There are people who know. Who looks for them?”
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