Next week's headline event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre was canceled suddenly Thursday, with organizers citing "unexpected circumstances with entertainers and speakers."
In a statement, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission didn't specify the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the event scheduled for Monday at ONEOK Field in Tulsa. The commission statement held out hope that it might be rescheduled later this year.
"Due to unexpected circumstances with entertainers and speakers, the Centennial Commission is unable to fulfill our high expectations for Monday afternoon's commemoration event and has determined not to move forward with the event at this time," the statement said.
The commission had enlisted Grammy-award-winning singer and songwriter John Legend to headline the "Remember & Rise" event. Voting rights activist Stacey Abrams was to deliver the keynote address.
The event was to be televised nationwide and 6,000 people were expected to attend.
CBS News has learned the event was canceled after a lawyer representing survivors and their heirs made demands that the organizing commission considered unreasonable.
A commission source showed CBS News an e-mail listing demands that was sent by the lawyer Sunday.
It includes $1 million each for survivors of the massacre and a non-negotiable $50 million pledge to a fund for survivors and descendants.
The source told CBS News the commission and lawyer had already agreed on financial terms, but the new demands couldn't be met, at least in time for Monday's commemoration.
The lawyer claimed to CBS News that the commission hasn't been negotiating in good faith for months, and he maintained that the survivors never agreed to participate in the event.
In a statement late Thursday, the chairman of the Centennial Commission, Phil Armstrong, said the panel was disappointed but encouraged people to visit other events taking place in Tulsa this weekend.
"We are disappointed in this last minute change but there is still so much to look forward to this weekend and we are still so proud of the work of the Commission over the past five years," Armstrong said. "I hope you'll join us at the Candlelight Vigil, at the Pathway to Hope, at one of the many great events other community organizations are hosting and of course at Greenwood Rising."
Greenwood Rising is a 7,000-square-foot museum nearing completion that's located in the Greenwood District and tells the story of Black Wall Street and the race massacre.
Violence erupted May 31 and June 1 in 1921, when a white mob killed an estimated 300 people and wounded 800, most of them Black, while burning 30 blocks of Black-owned businesses and homes and neighborhood churches in the Greenwood neighborhood, also known as " Black Wall Street." Planes were even used to drop explosives on the area, burning it to the ground.
A renewed search for bodies in 2020 found at least 12 in an unmarked mass grave in a Tulsa cemetery. A team led by Oklahoma's state archaeologist hasn't identified the bodies or confirmed they were victims of the massacre. But they were found in an area adjacent to two gravestones of victims and where old funeral home records show both identified and unidentified victims were buried.
-- CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca contributed reporting to this story.
First published on May 28, 2021 / 5:34 AM
© 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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