{"id":27390,"date":"2022-01-04T03:59:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T03:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=27390"},"modified":"2022-01-04T03:59:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T03:59:29","slug":"the-justice-files-remains-of-1921-tulsa-massacre-to-be-identified-at-utah-dna-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/04\/the-justice-files-remains-of-1921-tulsa-massacre-to-be-identified-at-utah-dna-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"The Justice Files: Remains of 1921 Tulsa Massacre to be identified at Utah DNA lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) \u2013 It was a story from her great-aunt that stayed with Jeanetta Williams.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, the head of the NAACP, Salt Lake branch grew up in Oklahoma and her great-aunt was a child in 1921.<\/p>\n<p>Back then, a race riot broke out in Greenwood just outside of Tulsa. The district was where African-Americans had established themselves financially in 1921. They owned their own businesses including banks. It was often called the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2016\/08\/the-end-of-black-wall-street\/498074\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Wall Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"nlp-ignore-block article-content rich-text\">\n<aside class=\"promo-link\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc4.com\/news\/digital-exclusives\/the-point-of-the-mountain-a-key-part-of-utahs-future-holds-tons-of-info-on-its-past\/\" class=\"promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t<strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">JUST IN:<\/span><\/strong> The Point of the Mountain, a key part of Utah\u2019s future, holds tons of info on its past<br \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe black community was thriving, they were doing good,\u201d said Williams. \u201cThey had good businesses. They were just trying to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But on Memorial Day weekend in 1921, a mob made up of white men, stormed the district of Greenwood.<\/p>\n<p>There was anger after a young black teen entered an elevator tripped and fell onto a white woman. According to news accounts from that time period, word quickly spread that she had been assaulted.<\/p>\n<p>The once-proud Greenwood district was set on fire by the mob. Homes were destroyed and businesses were torched.<\/p>\n<p>Within hours, plumes of dark smoke could be seen throughout the Tulsa area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just a time to pick up arms by the white folks and they just killed and slaughtered,\u201d recalled Williams.<\/p>\n<p>When the smoke cleared on June 1, 1921, 35-square blocks had been burned to the ground. Black Wall Street never recovered.<\/p>\n<p>The deaths ranged from 300-800 depending on various sources including the state.<\/p>\n<div class=\"nlp-ignore-block article-content rich-text\">\n<aside class=\"promo-link\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc4.com\/news\/digital-exclusives\/is-it-ethical-to-ask-about-covid-vaccine-status\/\" class=\"promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t<strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">READ:<\/span><\/strong> Is it ethical to ask about COVID vaccine status?<br \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThey had people missing and presumed that they were dead,\u201d said Williams. \u201cAnd what happened was folks put them in mass graves. Just buried them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To this day, many of those who died in the 1921 Tulsa massacre remains unknown.<\/p>\n<p>This summer, a commission and the city of Tulsa exhumed several bodies from a mass grave found at a local cemetery. It began the process to identify if they actually died in the race riot.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the commission awarded a Utah-based forensics laboratory to use the DNA to help identify the bodies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very optimistic that we\u2019ll be able to identify these people and bring answers to their families,\u201d said Karra Porter, co-founder of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intermountainforensics.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Intermountain Forensics.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Intermountain Forensics is the only non-profit lab in the nation. It will now start to develop profiles from the bodies exhumed from those graves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce we get profiles on these individuals, we\u2019re going to upload those to some public genealogy databases,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n<div class=\"nlp-ignore-block article-content rich-text\">\n<aside class=\"promo-link\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc4.com\/news\/wirth\/wirth-watching-new-years-1956-in-utah\/\" class=\"promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t<strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">Wirth Watching<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 New Year\u2019s 1956 in Utah<br \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>Once the profiles are placed on databases like Ged-Match, one can submit their own DNA to see if there\u2019s a relationship to those bodies exhumed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a step towards justice,\u201d said Williams. \u201c(These families) can give them a proper memorial or even a proper headstone. I think it\u2019s a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At stake for families of the dead are possible financial reparations that have never been paid. Oklahoma\u2019s legislature denied those payments.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s a similar effort underway in Congress<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d said Williams. \u201cMany of these families were financially successful and their descendants were denied the right to have a good life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc4.com\/news\/top-stories\/the-justice-files-remains-of-1921-tulsa-massacre-to-be-identified-at-utah-dna-lab\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) \u2013 It was a story from her great-aunt that stayed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cj-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27392,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27390\/revisions\/27392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}