First Tulsa Race Massacre victim from mass graves identified as World War I veteran after letter from 1936 found

A World War I veteran is the first person identified from graves filled with more than a hundred victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that devastated the city's Black community, the mayor said Friday. Experts said the "shocking news" came about after the discovery of a near-century old letter at the National Archives.

Using DNA from descendants of his brothers, the remains of C.L. Daniel from Georgia were identified by Intermountain Forensics, said Mayor G.T. Bynum and officials from the lab. He was in his 20s when he was killed.

"This is one family who gets to give a member of their family that they lost a proper burial, after not knowing where they were for over a century," Bynum said.