Atlanta Cemetery Identifying Hundreds On Unmarked African American Graves

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Genealogist and historian D. L. Henderson leads a tour of African American gravesites at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta on June 11, 2016. / On Second Thought

The history of Juneteenth goes like this: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But two years later, on June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas finally got the news that they were free. Juneteenth is this Sunday, but Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery celebrated a few days early this year.  Groups of all ages were invited to tour the cemetery's historic African-American gravesites last weekend. Many of them are still unmarked but Oakland Cemetery staff has made headway in the identification efforts.