FORT SMITH — The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Graves Project will be the topic of the Keynote address when the Arkansas Archeological Society will hold its annual meeting.
Keynote speakers Kary Stackelbeck, Oklahoma state archaeologist, and Brenda Nails-Alford, community liaison, will present “The Community-Engaged Search for Victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” at 8 p.m., according to a news release from the Arkansas Archeological Society.
The meeting will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdaysept 26 at the Fort Smith Convention Center, 900 Rogers Ave. The event is free and open to the public.
On May 31, 1921, the community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Okla., was set ablaze by white rioters. An unknown number of African Americans were killed, though some estimates suggest around 300 died in one of the worst acts of racial violence in our nation’s history, the release states.
In the days that followed, the bodies of the deceased were removed. Some were buried in Oaklawn Cemetery. Many other bodies were unaccounted for.
More than 100 years after the massacre, an interdisciplinary team led by Stackelbeck and Nails-Alford is implementing a community-engaged model to locate the graves of the victims, reclaim their identities, and restore them to their descendants, the release states. Stackelbeck and Nails-Alford, will discuss some of the results of this multi-year effort.
Other highlights of the annual meeting will include Paige Ford’s summary of findings from the 2026 excavation at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park that revealed a feature that has not been previously documented on a North American mound plaza complex; and a novel presentation from the 5th grade Woods Elementary School robotics team, Woods Site Seekers, who will present their archaeology excavator robot, ARCHIE, according to the release.
“The Arkansas Archeological Society was formed in 1960 for the purpose of uniting all persons interested in the archaeology of Arkansas, for the recognition and preservation of our cultural heritage and prehistory, and for fostering and encouraging the public’s interest in the preservation of the past,” the release states.
The annual meeting will be held in Fort Smith beginning with registration Friday afternoon and concluding Sunday with tours of the Fort Smith National Historic Site and the U.S. Marshals Museum.
For more information, visit the website, arkarch.org.