Ogden man identified as Tulsa massacre victim 103 years after his death

OGDEN — In a historic finding announced Friday in Tulsa, an Ogden man has now been identified as the first victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre to be identified through DNA testing conducted here in Utah.

The Tulsa massacre is considered one of the worst cases of racist violence in US history.

On June 1, 1921, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, a wealthy community known as “Black Wall Street,” was burned to the ground by a group of white Tulsa rioters. It is estimated that dozens to hundreds of black people were killed. Most were buried in unmarked graves.

Officials in Tulsa are currently working on a project called the 1921 Graves Investigation, which aims to exhume remains and use DNA and genealogy testing to track down victims and relatives of the deadly massacre.

Now, 103 years later, the family of a man who lived in Ogden has learned where his remains are.

“We have identified the first victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre since we began searching for them five years ago,” announced an emotional Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum.

The man’s name was CL Daniel and, according to authorities, he was a black man in his early 20s.

Who was CL Daniel?

“Identifying Mr. Daniel’s remains was, frankly, a very emotional experience for every member of our team,” Daniel said.

Researchers have discovered that in 1921, CL was a wounded Army veteran from World War I living in Ogden, desperately trying to find work as he couldn’t wait to return to his family in Georgia.

“In February 1921, he was living in Ogden and looking for work to return to Georgia where his mother lived. We are not sure how he was in Tulsa when Greenwood was destroyed,” said Karra Porter, CEO of Intermountain Forensics.

Porter said IMF researchers found a letter Daniel wrote from Ogden on February 25, 1921.

“On his way from Ogden, Utah, to Georgia, which is only 45 minutes from the DNA lab that would eventually sequence his DNA and bring us here, he made a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” said Alison Wilde, director of forensic investigative genetic genealogy at Intermountain Forensics.

Her team leads research for the 1921 Graves Project for the city of Tulsa.

Using the DNA of the remains previously known only as Grave 3, they began searching for relatives in geological databases such as GEDmatch.com and FamilyTreeDNA.com.

“It’s consumers and people who have done DNA tests and unknowingly put the data there,” Wilde said.

After searching thousands of family trees and calling relatives to request more DNA samples, Wilde said DNA reference testers clearly led them to a pair of brothers.

The letter that solved the case

From there, further genetic genealogy testing led to a request being made to the National Archives and a panacea being found: a letter from CL’s family attorney to the U.S. Veterans Administration on behalf of CL’s mother, Amanda.

The letter requested CL’s survivor’s pension and noted that he had been killed in race riots in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.

“As a father, when I read this letter, I think of his mother, Mrs. Daniel, who knew her brave son had been killed but never learned what happened to his remains,” Bynum said.

And although researchers say the remains most likely belong to CL, he was reportedly one of seven brothers. He had no children or wife.

“Although this victim is likely CL Daniel, the DNA from Burial 3 matches CL or one of his brothers (due to the amount of DNA shared between siblings). Regardless of CL’s connection to Burial 3, he is a victim of the Tulsa Race Massacre based on the documentation found this week. Work is currently underway to determine if any of his siblings are also connected to Tulsa or the Tulsa Race Massacre,” a press release said.

Now the Daniels family and other families connected to the two-day racially motivated massacre can see long-awaited closure.

“This is a family. A family that can give a lost family member a proper burial after not knowing where they were for over a century,” Bynum said. “We know we have at least 17 more people to find in this cemetery.”

Researchers urge people to continue submitting DNA samples to genealogy websites as they may be able to help with identification.