In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there's a shameful secret buried just beneath the surface.

It's been hidden and barely spoken of for a century.

A racist attack.

That night that we could see them burning the Negroes part of town. We saw them burning it. It was just terrible.

And when you see the pictures that before and after,

you know it's like it's a war zone.

There's nothing left standing.

What sparked this massacre?

It was a really scandalous, false narrative

about an attempted rape in broad daylight in downtown Tulsa.

And how was it kept a secret for so long?

I mean, some people were threatened with their very lives if they talked about it.

100 years later, as this nation attempts to reckon with the hateful elements of its past,

a search for mass graves, and the truth is finally underway.

Doing a murder investigation 99 years after the fact is a tremendous challenge.

Could the discovery of a pair of old shoes hold the key to unlocking this mystery.

We did get to a point where we encountered an interesting discovery.

I'm Sunny Hosten, and this is episode one of Tulsa's Buried Truth.

Here's ABC's Steve Osensami.

In Tulsa, the sound of new construction is music to the ears of city leaders.

The jackhandlers and cement saws that are laying down new roads and putting

up new apartment buildings are a welcome noise in an American city that's been shrinking.

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