state of oklahoma was not culpable. we were shutdown by the city of tulsa, and at that point, you know, i thought the ball game was over. this is a historic day for tulsa and for our country as we begin a test excavation in oak lawn cemetery. there s nothing abstract. there s nothing theoretical. this is not a research project. this is an investigation. scientists are set to finally break ground in the effort to find victims of the tulsa race massacre. nearly 100 years later the families of the victims of the 1921 tulsa race massacre could get answers and closure. it should have been done well before now, but it wasn t. that is the baton that s been handed to us, and it is it is not an easy race. the initial excavation we focused on a location within oak lawn cemetery that we felt had a
black entrepreneurship. people call it the black wall street. like putting harlem, bourbon street, and chocolate city all in one place. but white paulsons talked about it as little africa or land. tulsa was a powder keg, needing only something to set the community alight. between 100 and 300 people, most of them black, were killed. today we call it a massacre.
you cannot imagine it would happen right here in your own hometown in the middle of the united states. and yet, it had. my name is, i am the mayor of tulsa, i grew up here in tulsa, my family has been here since the 18 70s, my great- great-grandfather was the second mayor of tulsa, i heard about the massacre in 2001 or 2002, i was 24 years old at this point emile, every high school student in oklahoma has to go through an oklahoma history course and it never came up. my dad had been president of the tulsa historical society, it never came up. hearing about that, it was shocking to me, because i love tulsa. i cannot believe that tulsa would be the kind of city where
but tulsa has a truth problem. hiding the truth and people who will not challenge what is perceived to be true. what s keeping tulsa from being a great shining city on the hill is dealing with the legacy of so-called tulsa race riot of 1921. white actuals ans murdered black folks and were trying to get rid of the bodies by jumping it in mass graves around the city. many offering were done to get rid of the bodies. in the late 1990s, senator max even horner and my father stayed representative don ross created the commission to study the tulsa race riot of 1921, which
we want people all over to understand that what we do together is so much more relevant than our pulling apart. if people knew what happened, if people understood what happened and could rectify that kind of thing and make people understand you need to know this history so we don t repeat it and heaven knows seems like we re repeating some of it. that last part of what she said in terms of knowing the history so we don t repeat it, it feels like the country s in a somewhat different place now, not just because of what happened with george floyd, but the influence of pop culture, raising awareness of juneteenth, shows like watchmen raising awareness about the black wall street, where the nation feels like, yeah, we can t ignore this anymore. but there s this piece where it