Our First Year: South-View Cemetery 125 Years

Editor's Note: Cascade Patch celebrates its first anniversary this month. This piece, by Jamie Cox, is today's "Our First Year" feature. It first ran April 15, 2011.

South-View Cemetery in East Atlanta will hold a 125th Charter Day and Mausoleum Dedication on Sunday, April 17, from 2-4 p.m. to celebrate the lives and unique stories of those laid to rest on its grounds. 

According to South-View's historical records, South-View, 1990 Jonesboro Rd., was established in 1886 after six African-American businessmen and former slaves (including George W. Graham, Robert Grant, Jacob McKinley, Charles H. Morgan, John Render, and Albert Watts) petitioned Georgia for a place to bury their loved ones. 

From that date forward, South-View became the resting place of prominent African-Americans from all professions and walks of life.

Old Fourth Ward patriarch Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and Atlanta's first black millionaire Alonzo Herndon, once a west side resident, are buried at South-View. Educator Jean Childs Young, who lived in southwest Atlanta, and Auburn Avenue leader John Wesley Dobbs, grandfather to Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, also have South-View grave sites.

Lisa Borders, former Atlanta City Council President and current President of the Grady Foundation, will speak at the Sunday celebration. Borders is the granddaughter of former Wheat Street Baptist Church Minister Williams Holmes Borders, Sr., who is buried at South-View.

Kenneth Morris, President of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation and a descendant of the great abolitionist, will also address the audience.

For more information on the 125th Charter Day Celebration, go to www.southviewcemetery.com or call 404-622-5393.