On Feb. 25, 1921, three months before the Tulsa Race Massacre erupted, World War I veteran C.L. Daniel wrote a letter to the U.S. War Department, asking for enough money to get home to his mother in Georgia.

“I ant got no money and want to get home,” wrote Daniel, a Black man who was about 20 years old when he was honorably discharged from the Army in 1919. “Dear Sir, please send me a nof money to get me a job and to eat with till I get better …. I am asking for I nead it. Long ways from home and send me a copy of my reckart for pruf to these peels I have a poor mother in the state of Georgia.” He signed the letter “C.L. Daniel Ogden Uta.”

Three months after Daniel sent that letter, he stopped in Tulsa. He was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst episodes of racist terror against Black Americans in U.S. history.

For more than 100 years, Daniel’s family would not know exactly what happened to him or where he was buried.

On Tuesday, six years after Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, a Republican, reopened the city’s investigation into possible mass graves of massacre victims, Daniel was honored in a memorial service in Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery, blocks from the site of the violence.

The ceremony came after Tulsa made history in July 2020, when it began digging for mass graves. In October 2020, scientists discovered one in the city’s public cemetery. For the next four years, scientists worked to examine remains exhumed from the grave to determine any connection to the massacre.

In July, the city announced that Daniel was the first person identified from those remains.

During Tuesday’s service at the cemetery, Bynum said Daniel’s name would be added to history. Until the city’s recent search, he said, Daniel was “someone who was never talked about in the scholarship around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.”

The mayor added that after the investigation, “we know this is a man who served our country honorably at the time that was known as the Great War, the war to end all wars. C.L. Daniel answered the call to serve our nation and defend freedom in that war.”

The solemn memorial service began with the singing of the African American spiritual song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and included a bugle call of taps. Descendants of Daniel’s family sat on the front row.

In silence, two members of the Oklahoma National Guard gave white-gloved salutes. One Guard member walked silently to Daniel’s family, knelt and presented a folded American flag.

“For the family of C.L. Daniel, today serves as a profound reminder of the enduring power of love, especially a mother’s devotion,” Daniel’s family said in a statement. “C.L. Daniel, the youngest of Thomas and Amanda Daniel’s seven sons, grew up under the care of a vigilant and dedicated mother.”

“While DNA provided the scientific key to his identity,” the statement said, letters written on behalf of his mother “offered the context and connection that confirmed C.L. was killed in the massacre. Amanda’s perseverance in seeking redress serves as clear, indisputable proof that C.L. Daniel was indeed a victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.”

The Tulsa Race Massacre began on May 31, 1921. Over two days and nights, White mobs attacked residents of the all-Black community of Greenwood, a neighborhood in Tulsa so prosperous it was called Black Wall Street. White mobs destroyed the community in the rampage, which historians said left as many as 300 Black people dead and 10,000 without homes. Witnesses recounted seeing men, women and children shot, some while trying to escape burning houses.

Survivors of the massacre reported seeing bodies tossed into the Arkansas River or loaded onto trucks or trains, making it difficult to account for the dead. Other survivors told stories of Black people being placed in mass graves.

No White person was ever arrested in connection with the massacre. For decades after the rampage, few people spoke of what happened.

Researchers working with the city discovered letters written by Daniel, showing that he was in Utah in February 1921, trying to find a job and to make his way back to Georgia. National Archives records showed that he was not married, according to Tulsa officials, and did not have children when he died.

“While it is unclear why C. L. was in Tulsa, the notes from his mother’s attorney and another letter - one from a U.S. Congressman from Georgia - corroborate one another in that C. L. died in 1921 in Oklahoma,” Tulsa officials said in a statement.

On Feb. 11, 1936, a lawyer in Georgia wrote to the Veterans Administration, seeking to secure death benefits for a mother who claimed that her son was a victim of the “1921 Tulsa Race Riot.”

“Gentlemen;” the attorney wrote, “A negro woman, Amanda M. Daniel, has appealed to me for help in securing any benefits that may be due her or which she may secure under present regulations. She is in destitute circumstances. She had a son C.L. Daniels [sic], who served in the army during the late war. She has no discharge and is going to have difficulty in establishing his death. C.L. was killed in a race riot in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 according to best information she furnished me.”

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Bynum said that when Daniel was honorably discharged in January 1919, “he was just trying to get home to his mom, when he stopped here and was murdered. … His mother died never knowing where her son was buried. His family never knew until our investigators found him and could call them and tell them.”

A monument has been erected in the “Potter’s Field” section of the cemetery to honor Daniel and others found in mass graves.

“This is hallowed ground,” Bynum said Tuesday. “This is where the victims of the worst thing that happened in our city were buried.”

He said scientists will continue to examine DNA exhumed from the mass graves in an attempt to identify other massacre victims.

Someone placed a red carnation and an American flag on a grave marker, which was inscribed: “Known only to God. Unmarked burial investigated during the search for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Burial #3 C. L. Daniel.