City to release Oak Lawn exhumation report in June; mayor requested nearly $1 million to continue graves work

City officials told the African American Affairs Commission in May that exhumations at Oak Lawn Cemetery for the 2024 season are complete and that a report summarizing the season’s work is expected in early June. Deputy Mayor Brenton Todd said the mayor’s budget presentation requested nearly $1 million to continue the city’s part of the graves investigation; that funding request was pending City Council review.

Todd said specialist teams — including Intermountain Forensics and genealogists working with the city — continued family outreach, DNA comparisons and genealogical matches for remains recovered in 2024. He asked commissioners and community supporters to speak with city councilors to press for the budget appropriation so the work could continue.

Phoebe Stubblefield, the lead forensic anthropologist at the C.A. Pound Human Identification Lab at the University of Florida, described laboratory processing of exhumed remains. She said remains are radiographed to detect artifacts or ballistic fragments, each burial is processed on a separate tray to avoid mingling, and analysts inventory skeletal elements, repair damaged bones and search soil for clothing items, buttons and funerary hardware. Stubblefield said the lab maintains both paper and digital files and holds trays in a layer of interim storage before reinterment planning.

Community context: Commissioners noted that the city had facilitated a burial and dedication ceremony for family members of C.L. Daniels and flew relatives to Tulsa for the event. Commissioner Williams and others urged the creation of a standardized intake and verification process for descendants who believe they are related to someone in the 1921 graves work; Angela Raji and Commissioner Armstrong recommended an intake form that collects the descendant’s identifying documents and the alleged ancestor’s name, then passes the material to genealogists for verification.

Why it matters: city staff said continued funding is needed to finish laboratory analysis, genealogical matches and family notifications. Todd said teams are still working “nearly every day” to reconcile DNA profiles, genealogists’ family trees and outreach to potential relatives.

Stubblefield described artifacts the lab has found so far — nails, buttons, snaps, funerary hardware and other items — and said x-rays have helped target manual excavation. She said the lab’s next steps include completing inventories, reconciling digital and paper records and preparing trays for pre-reinterment storage.

What’s next: city staff expect to publish the 2024-season report in early June and to include additional announcements with that release. Continued work depends on the City Council’s approval of the mayor’s budget request. Commissioners asked staff to consider a formal descendant oversight mechanism and a standardized intake pathway to manage incoming requests from people who believe they are descendants or have family materials.