Virtual Tour: We Shall Overcome

“We Shall Overcome: African American Stories from Civil War to Civil Rights,” a tour led by HOF volunteer Jihan Hurse as part of Oakland Cemetery’s Juneteenth 2020 celebration.

“We Shall Overcome” became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but the origin of the song dates back to antebellum days and a spiritual sung by enslaved people, “No More Auction Block for Me.” This tour explores the lives and accomplishments of outstanding, and ordinary, African Americans who fought to overcome the effects of slavery and discrimination to help shape the history of Atlanta.

A few of the notable African Americans buried at Oakland include Atlanta’s first African American mayor, Maynard Holbrook Jackson; Bishop Wesley John Gaines, minister and founder of Morris Brown College; Carrie Steele Logan, who established the first orphanage for African American children in Atlanta; and Selena Sloan Butler, founder of the first African American parent-teacher association in the United States.