Six former slaves founded now nationally-recognized cemetery

And as we come back in the newsroom now, I want to turn our attention on this eve of Halloween to an Atlanta cemetery that is getting some national recognition for its place in Black history. Southview Cemetery has joined the National Register of Historic Places, and our Chris Rosenthal joins us now live with the details on this story. Hey, Chris. Yeah, Southview Cemetery. It was 1886 here, founded by six former slaves. The cemetery now has about 80,000 or so folks here that have been buried here over the years in the past about 140 year history. I mean, And it really is a history here, who's who of Atlanta. Right here, we're looking at Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King Sr. And we have Hank Aaron just right up here as well. John Lewis is here. So many names. Each one of these tombstones represents a story and a piece of history. And I have Winifred Watts Hemphill here. She's the president here at Southview Cemetery, and tell me a little bit about what this took. This has been kind of a long time in the making to get this National Registry designation out. Yes, we are so proud to have it now. The designation has been on the National Register of Historic Places. It was a 20-year process, and it probably still wouldn't have happened except for the work of Jason Winston and the City Council for offering a grant to the Atlanta Preservation Center to make this happen. I think Southview always deserved it, and it really makes us feel seen. The African-American community is now part of the National Register. Let's, you know, obviously I've talked about, you know, we've all heard of Martin Luther King Sr. here. Martin Luther King Jr. was buried here at one point until he was moved. And Hank Aaron, we know these names. Some of these other names here. And interesting stories here. Well, sure. We have Bunny Jackson Ransom, and that's her monument there. She was the first African-American first lady married to Maynard Jackson. We have Katie McBride. If you look at the McBride monument, she bought 10 lots here at Southview. She was an early entrepreneur, female, black female entrepreneur. She had a taxi service and a hotel. Kind of in between them you see the one that says Hamilton. That's where Grace Towns Hamilton is buried and she was a long time city councilwoman in Atlanta. I think she was the first black city councilwoman here. So much, so much history going on here, going back here and, you know, post-Civil War, of course, this was the first, what was the designation there, first? We are the oldest African-American stockholder corporation in the Southeast. We are an African-American cemetery, but it was not... Segregated to be African-American, it was operated and owned by African-Americans. And I'd say probably 95% of the people here are buried that are African-American. But we have people from all ethnicities and nationalities here as well. And Tyler, just walking through here, it's an amazing who's who of history. And every every tombstone here, every grave here is an incredible story. A connection to our history here in Atlanta. Chris Rosenthal, I appreciate you telling us all about this and being able to give us the new information that they earned, the National Historic Recognition. So we'll be checking in with you throughout the afternoon as we can continue to talk about this recognition for the Southview Cemetery. Chris, thank you.