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Oakland Cemetery discovers 800 unmarked AfricanAmerican graves
Oakland Cemetery has discovered more than 800 unmarked graves in the African-American section of the historic burial ground.
Preparing for its next phase of restoration, the Historic Oakland Foundation (HOF) recently conducted a geophysical survey of the AfricanAmerican section in the cemetery and discovered some 872 probable grave sites. HOF’s Preservation, Restoration and Operations (PRO) Team will crossreference the flagged locations with the cemetery’s burial records to verify the data.
HOF partnered with Atlanta-based remote sensing firm Bigman Geophysical for a technologically-advanced survey of the three acres comprising Oakland’s African-American grounds.
Bigman Geophysical spent several days at Oakland, utilizing ground penetrating radar (GPR) and highly-precise GPS. The GPR waves reflect back when encountering a change in the material underground, such as a coffin. The GPR unit displayed a realtime cross-section of what is underground, and surveyors placed a flag on each location that detected a change in material. Those flag locations were then recorded with GPS and the data loaded into software that Bigman Geophysical then interpreted.
Historic African-American burial traditions utilized natural markers like wood, shrubbery or flowers, which have been lost through the passage of time. Therefore, much of this section of Oakland Cemetery is bereft of headstones or other visual markers.
“HOF is spending a large part of 2016 researching and preparing to work in the African-American section next year,” said Neale Nickels, director of preservation at HOF. “We are gathering community support and interest, and hope that in addition to a restoration of the hardscape and landscape, we will be able to add to our already well-rounded educational programming.”
For more information, visit oaklandcemetery.com.
Bigman Geophysical spent several days using ground radar and GPS to find the unmarked graves at Oakland Cemetery. Each possible grave site was marked with a red flag for futher investigation.
