Four years ago, Jihan Hurse, a self-described history buff, decided to tour Atlanta’s Historic Oakland Cemetery during its celebration of Black History Month. “I couldn’t get enough,” says Hurse, a management analyst for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 70,000 people are buried in Oakland. Several thousand of those permanent residents are of African American descent and include many of Atlanta’s most prominent citizens. Hurse was so taken with what she learned during that first tour that now she is one of the volunteers leading the tours. She shares what is so special about the cemetery in general and for blacks in particular. “We don’t realize the impact that we will have on the generations that will come after us,” she says.
Q: What drew you to Oakland Cemetery in the first place?
A: You always hear about the diversity and the opportunity here in Atlanta. When I first got to the cemetery, the stories of the people who are there reflected that diversity for me. I saw names like Austell and Inman. Growing up in Atlanta, you think those are just places or street names then you realize that they were actual people. You have people as famous as Margaret Mitchell and Bobby Jones to regular, everyday people. In the African-American section, I really came to appreciate the foundation that African Americans played in what makes Atlanta one of the great cities.
Q: Who are some of the folks that we would find buried in the African American section?
A: There are people like James Tate. He opened a grocery store, which was the city's first African American-owned business. In 1866, he was a delegate to the Georgia Freedmen's Convention, which sought equal rights and the end of discriminatory laws following slavery. Then you have folks like Selena Sloan Butler who established the first PTA for African Americans. Her husband, Henry Butler, was a very prominent doctor in Atlanta. He opened one of the first pharmacies for African Americans and established the National Association of Colored Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists. The people in the African-American section really struck a chord with me, the way they lived their lives with such richness. And of course, you have people like Maynard Jackson. He is one of the few blacks not buried in the African-American section but is on the African-American tour for obvious reasons —three-time mayor of Atlanta who made strides with the Olympics, the airport, police reform, minority-owned businesses.
Q: What’s the history of “Slave Square?”
A: In 1852, the city established a segregated area within the original six acres of the cemetery for African Americans – mostly slaves. In 1878, the city ordered the sexton to dig up the 860 bodies and divided new plots to sell to white patrons at $50 a plot. It is one of the most heinous examples of segregation and discrimination – even in death. I probably get the most visible reaction from visitors when they hear this story. Even in the light of what happened, you still have all of these stories of triumph.
Q: What do you want people to take away from an African-American tour at Oakland?
A: I would like everyone to leave with some conversation starter. Whether it's sharing an interesting fact of one of the African-American residents, or some inspiring or encouraging thought, or maybe some charge to become an equitable citizen of Atlanta or wherever they are from. I hope they leave with a dialogue that continues and creates progress.
Q: Whom would you like to be buried beside in Oakland?
A: There isn't a particular person. However, I would like to be buried in the African-American section. Although the cemetery was desegregated in 1963 and anyone can be buried wherever a space is available, I still would choose to be in the African-American Grounds among all the early black movers and shakers of Atlanta.
Historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta’s Grant Park is open to the public every day from dawn to dusk and people can visit the African American Grounds during that time. Guided tours of the grounds are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on April 15, July 7 and Sept. 22.
The cemetery is engaged in an ongoing project to restore the African American Grounds. For more on this effort, visit http://www.oaklandcemetery.com/projects/african-american-grounds/
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