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OGDEN — A former Ogden man has been identified as a victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the first such identification stemming from an initiative aimed at documenting victims of the violence.
C. L. Daniel, previously known only as "Burial 3," has been identified from DNA evidence and research into historical evidence of the time, Intermountain Forensics, a Utah nonprofit group, said in a statement Friday. Millcreek-based Intermountain Forensics is heading efforts, launched in 2021, to identify victims of the incident using DNA and genetic material.
"This is a historic and humbling discovery for the victims and families of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre," Tulsa Mayor Bynum said in a statement. "More than a century later, we are finding more answers about where the victims were buried."
As many as several hundred Black people were killed in the Tulsa Race Massacre more than 100 years ago, after a group of white Tulsa residents looted, torched and destroyed the Greenwood neighborhood of the city, an affluent community where Black residents lived. The spur was some sort of exchange on May 30, 1921, between a young Black man and a white woman in the elevator of a Tulsa building, which exploded into a confrontation between Black and white mobs and the attack on Greenwood, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.
"An unknown number of black victims were killed, estimated at dozens to hundreds. Most were buried in unmarked graves," according to the Intermountain press release.
Why Daniel, a U.S. Army veteran who served in World War I, was in Tulsa is not clear. As of February 1921, he had been living in Ogden, looking for work and planning to move to Georgia, where his mother lived.
"We're not sure how he happened to be in Tulsa when Greenwood was destroyed," said Karra Porter, chief executive officer of Intermountain Forensics. Porter said researchers found a letter Daniel had written from Ogden on Feb. 25, 1921.
Using his DNA material, potential relatives of Daniel were identified via the records of GEDmatch.com and FamilyTreeDNA.com, genetic testing companies. Based on those identifications, Intermountain found records from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., further aiding the effort.
Among the records was "the most convincing piece of evidence" — a letter from Daniel's family attorney to the U.S. Veteran's Administration related to the man's survivor benefits as a military veteran. The letter states, in part, "C. L. was killed in a race riot in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921."
"It was clear from the letter that he was proud of his time in the Army," Porter said. "He was suffering from a disability but was looking for any work that he could perform."
