Oak Woods Cemetery

CTL-E-5869 · Address · site · 1853–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07122 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5869.

Oak Woods Cemetery is a large Chicago cemetery at 1035 East 67th Street in the Greater Grand Crossing area of the South Side. It was chartered on February 12, 1853, covers 183 acres, and was designed by landscape architect Adolph Strauch as a landscape-lawn cemetery; sources differ on the first burials, giving 1860 in the cemetery's history and 1865 in Chicago Sun-Times reporting, and this record carries both dates rather than blending them. Oak Woods is the burial place of Chicago mayor Harold Washington, the city's first Black mayor; of anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells; of Olympic champion Jesse Owens; and of other prominent figures including Enrico Fermi and Cap Anson. The cemetery also holds the Confederate Mound, the mass grave and memorial for Confederate prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas and were reburied here after the Civil War; its monument was dedicated in 1895. In September 1963, following protests, Oak Woods ended its racial segregation policy. It is a peer Chicago-area historic cemetery to Burr Oak Cemetery (CTL-E-1225).

The record

• Also known as: Oakwoods Cemetery

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 8; first Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Oak Woods Cemetery entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5869 free. The only 'cemetery' token hit is Burr Oak Cemetery (CTL-E-1225), a different Chicago-area cemetery, which stands as this record's peer. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan sample, readiness rank 2205 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #296). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — a principal burial ground of Black Chicago leadership, peer to the homed Burr Oak Cemetery record. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Chartered February 12, 1853; 183 acres (cemetery history as carried in encyclopedia and press accounts, accessed 2026-10-16). First-burial dates CONFLICT across sources and are shown, not blended: the cemetery history gives first burials in 1860, while Chicago Sun-Times reporting gives first burials in 1865. Confederate Mound numbers likewise conflict: the on-site plaque lists more than 4,000 names while a figure of 6,000 is described in the cemetery history as probably inflated. MEDIA: Map HELD (address/site record; no map spec staged in this packet pass). Visual HELD — candidate: a documentary photograph of the Oak Woods Cemetery grounds or entrance at 1035 E. 67th Street, unverified at file-page level. Chart FILLED (Timeline). Video HELD. Audio HELD. MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = HELD (Address/site record: an address-based map spec belongs on this record at the site layer; no map spec is staged) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No audio with a verified rights basis was staged in this pass.)

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Oak Woods Cemetery" — supports the February 12, 1853 charter, 1035 E. 67th Street / Greater Grand Crossing location, 183 acres, Adolph Strauch design, first burials in 1860, the named burials, the Confederate Mound account, and the September 1963 end of the segregation policy — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Woods_Cemetery (build store)
• Northwestern University, Hidden Truths project, "Oak Woods Cemetery" — supports establishment in 1853, first interments in the 1860s, and the reinterment of Confederate prisoners and City Cemetery remains at Oak Woods — https://hiddentruths.northwestern.edu/factors/rural/oakwoods.html (build store)
• Chronicle Media, "An unlikely memorial in Chicago to soldiers from the Confederacy" — supports the burials of Harold Washington, Jesse Owens, Enrico Fermi and Ida B. Wells, the Camp Douglas origin of the Confederate dead, and the monument's 1895 dedication by President Grover Cleveland — https://chronicleillinois.com/news/cook-county-news/unlikely-memorial-chicago-soldiers-confederacy/ (build store)
• Chicago Sun-Times (Lee Bey), Oak Woods Cemetery reporting as carried in the Sun-Times video account — supports chartering by the state in 1853 and gives first burials as 1865, the conflicting date carried openly in this record — https://www.youtube.com/shorts/venmKQ0atg0 (build store)

More address records

• 1503 Columbia Avenue
• 1613-35 W. Chicago Avenue
• 2400 S. Michigan Ave. (Defender plant)
• 29th Street Beach
• 3915 W. Roosevelt Road
• Anthony Overton Elementary School

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-5869 · Combined Graph record U-07122 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The sanctuaries and sacred ground this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.