Protests unfold as city reburies remains that could be linked to Tulsa’s 1921 Race Massacre

Protesters gathered outside an Oklahoma cemetery Friday to decry the reburial of remains that could be linked to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Protesters gathered outside an Oklahoma cemetery on Friday to decry the reburial of remains exhumed earlier this summer that could be linked to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The remains of 19 people exhumed from Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa were reinterred Friday in the same place they were found. The remains were exhumed as a part of a city effort to find unmarked burials from the violent event -- which happened when 100 years ago -- when a white mob stormed the Greenwood District of Tulsa, a predominantly Black area dubbed "Black Wall Street" on May 31, 1921. The mob destroyed and burned 35 city blocks of the thriving Black neighborhood to the ground. Oklahoma originally recorded 36 deaths in the brazen attack, but a 2001 commission reported the number was as high as 300. However, dozens of protesters had gathered to denounce the Friday reburial without a proper funeral ceremony. The burial process was closed to the public.