Family Of First DNA-Identified Tulsa Race Massacre Victim Urges Others To Join Effort

The family of a man killed in the Tulsa Race Massacre is encouraging other families to take part in the effort to identify other victims.

“We really want to encourage more families to go out there and get the testing done, so they can be a part of something that's bigger than all of us,” said Stacy Brown, a distant niece of C.L. Daniel, the first victim identified through DNA in the modern search for victims.

“He was really just passing through Tulsa at the time he was killed, from what we were able to gather,” said Brown.

She and her cousin, Andrew Poythress Jr., only met in August after being connected by Daniel, their common relative. Both contributed DNA that narrowed down the search, and the final identification, according to Brown, came through dental records.

“When he enlisted, on his paperwork, it showed he had two gold teeth, and the skeletal remains actually had two gold teeth.”

The City of Tulsa sponsored the search for unknown victims, the exhumation of Oaklawn Cemetery and a memorial service held for all of the people exhumed. The remains have not been reinterred, and the graves marked for the first time. Only the one for Daniel has a name, but the others can be modified if more identifications are made.

“Without the DNA,” said Poythress, “C.L. would never have a face, just always be burial #3, but because of what I did, and Stacy did, he now has a face, he has a name.”

The family plans to return the remains to a family cemetery in Georgia but first hopes to hold a reunion in Tulsa with their extended family identified through the genealogical work for the investigation.