Were it not for the somber atmos­phere, Oak Woods would prob­a­bly be one of Chicago’s favorite parks as it is beau­ti­ful­ly laid out and has four attrac­tive elon­gat­ed ponds. The ceme­tery is the final rest­ing place of many of the South Side’s most famous res­i­dents, includ­ing Olympian run­ner Jesse Owens, nuclear physi­cist Enri­co Fer­mi, civ­il rights leader Ida B. Wells, May­or William Hale Thomp­son (per­haps Chicago’s most eccen­tric leader), and the first black may­or of Chica­go, Harold Wash­ing­ton Jr. One of the more strik­ing mon­u­ments is the memo­r­i­al to the over­whelm­ing ‘’6,000’’ Con­fed­er­ate pris­on­ers of war who died at Camp Dou­glas (on the site of the present day Illi­nois Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Bronzeville). The may­ors’ graves are locat­ed along the north­west shore of the largest lake (Sym­pho­ny Lake). If Illi­nois’ ugly polit­i­cal world inter­ests you, you can find Sen­a­tor Roland Bur­ris’ osten­ta­tious monument/grave pre­pared in advance, with a list of his achieve­ments.