Oberlin Village is located around the area of Oberlin Road between Sonora Street and Clark Avenue. Founded by freed slaves in the late 1860s, approximately 160 families populated the village to form the largest reconstruction era freedmen’s settlement in Wake County. Oberlin Village retained its African American, owner-occupied, middle-class status until shortly after the Second World War, when it was absorbed into the Raleigh suburbs. Since then, continued development of this central Raleigh area has removed most of its remnants, but some vestiges remain, including the Historic Oberlin Cemetery.
