South-View Cemetery


South-View Cemetery is the oldest African-American cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia, established in 1886. It has since served as the burial place for many leaders in the civil rights movement including Julian Bond and John Lewis. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally buried here but was later moved.

History

The cemetery was founded by nine African American businessmen in 1886 to provide a place where their family members could be buried with dignity in the midst of backlash to Reconstruction.
The cemetery has both perpetual care and non-perpetual care areas. All new lots are sold with perpetual care, but many historic family plots were not. As a result, some portions of the cemetery have "suffered from neglect". A non-profit foundation was created in 2004 to raise money, conduct preservation projects and provide care for historic parts of the cemetery.
A cell phone tour of the cemetery was created in a collaborative effort with Oakland Cemetery to provide biographical details about African Americans interred at the two cemeteries. Visitors can obtain a site map at the visitors center, and each of the 14 stops on the tour is marked with a granite marker. The visitor can call a phone number and dial each stop number as they arrive at it, to hear information.
The cemetery celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011, and at that time Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed gave it the city's Phoenix Award for its contributions to the city. For many years South-View was paid by the city of Atlanta to provide spaces for African-Americans buried at city expense.
Two printed guidebooks to the cemetery have been published.

Notable interments

Twenty-two people are buried in the cemetery that have or have had schools in the Atlanta Public Schools named for them. All the deceased pastors of Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church are buried here as of 2016.
Veterans who served in every war since World War I are buried in the cemetery, including two members of the Tuskegee Airmen. An annual ceremony as part of Wreaths Across America has been held in December starting in 2010.
Notable people buried here include: