C.L. Daniel Identified in Tulsa Mass Grave, Highlighting 1921 Race Massacre’s Lingering Impact

GREENWOOD DIST. — A years-long investigation into a mass grave in Tulsa, Oklahoma yielded its first answers Monday as scientists identified the remains of C.L. Daniel.

Daniel, known until recently as “burial number three”, was a World War One veteran killed in the 1921 massacre. Investigators discovered his body along with at least sixteen others during the excavation of a mass grave in Oaklawn cemetery.

Researchers who have been working to identify the remains were led to a letter from Daniel’s mother, written in 1936. That letter, written to an official managing Veterans benefits, confirmed that Daniel was murdered along with hundreds of others when White supremacists stormed, bombed, and burned Greenwood to the ground on May 31 and June 1, 1921.

Daniel is the first person identified since the investigation into the mass graves began in 2018.

According to NBC News, Daniels was born in Georgia. His father, Thomas, passed away when he was just a child, leaving his mother, Amanda, to raise her six children.

C.L. Daniel joined the military during the first world war, and was honorably discharged after suffering a leg injury. When the war ended, he set out to explore the country, and stopped in Tulsa in the Spring of 1921 on his way back to Georgia.

Daniel, however, would never make it back to Georgia, and his mother was never able to properly bury her son.

According to the researchers leading the investigation, C.L. Daniel was likely younger than 25 at the time of his death.

In a post on Twitter (X), Mayor GT Bynum called identifying Mr. Daniel’s remains “an emotionally powerful experience for every person on our team.”

Remains of C.L. Daniel discovered as the call for reparations for 1921 Massacre survivors and descendants grows

News of the identification of C.L. Daniel’s remains comes a day after news broke that the city is closer to creating a commission “to establish and implement the terms of a reparations program”.

In 2021, Tulsa City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper and others fought to authorize the development of a “Beyond Apology” report. For more than a year, experts in community engagement led a series of independent, intentional discussions across Tulsa to solicit input from residents on how the city should move forward and repair the lasting damage from the 1921 massacre.

The final Beyond Apology report listed the commission as one of its key recommendations. In that recommendation, the report makes clear that “reparations must be differentiated from ‘equitable policy'”.

“While the City of Tulsa should strive to enact ‘equitable policy’,” the report reads, “the matter of reparations and any ensuing program exists to remedy past harms done to a specific group of people.”

“In this case that is the the over 100 years of harm done to Black Tulsans in the wake of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.”

The top three priorities listed in the report include redress through education, including tuition free college for descendants. Financial compensation, prioritized by nearly half of those who attended, includes direct payments to descendants of the massacre. Nearly a third of participants also prioritized community and economic development, including deep investment in Black business and neighborhoods.

It has been 103 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed the thriving and historic Black Wall Street area. It took 103 years for the family of C.L. Daniel to receive their first form of closure. And many say the city cannot afford to wait any longer to finally provide justice.