In the 1850s and 1860s, he was involved in abolition and Underground Railroad activities headed at Chicago's Quinn Chapel AME Church.

[3] Overall had many children: Ida, Grace Victoria, Florence Esther, Norman Murray, Maud, Guy, and Eula.

[8] He invested widely in real estate[9] and was a director and later president of the Missouri and Nebraska Coal Mining Company.

[12] His close relationship with the city government and military experience placed him on the reception committee for the visit of Ulysses S. Grant to Omaha in 1879.

[13] He was also closely aligned with Andrew and Edward Rosewater in various Omaha civic affairs,[14] as well as with Mayors Bemis and Moores.

[15] His services were at St. Philip the Deacon and were said by his friend, Father John Albert Williams, and he was buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery.

[19] When the governor of Massachusetts obtained permission to enlist blacks to fight in the civil war in early 1863, Overall was appointed superintendent of the western divisions.

He served as recruiting officer for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry, including Sergeants John H. W. Collins and Joseph D. Wilson of Company H in the 54th,[3] and offered his services to Illinois governor Richard Yates to raise a company to join the United States Colored Troops.

In the Committee on Resolutions, under chairman Joseph Stanley, spoke for the rights of blacks to vote, to form stock associations, to attend public schools, and to purchase land.

[24] Overall briefly resigned from the post in 1879[25] to focus on his business activities, but soon was reinstated[26] and continued to work for the postal service until two weeks before his death.

[17] Overall helped found the successor group, the Golden Link Literary club in Omaha closely associated with the A.M.E. Church.

Other leaders at the meeting were J. O. Adams, Price Saunders, E. S. Clemens, Cyrus D. Bell, W. B. Walker, Parker, Alfred S. Barnett, W. G. Woodbey, F. Lewis, Dr. Stephens, Alfonso Wilson, Fed Thomas, Silas Robbins, and Dr. Matthew Ricketts.

Ricketts initially opposed the idea that whites could be allowed in the league, fearing they could dominate it, but Walker supported that clause convincingly.

[35] In 1897 and 1898, Overall organized a Congress of White and Colored Americans to be held in Omaha during the Trans-Mississippi Exposition which took place from June 1 to November 1, 1898.

[36] Overall worked with John Albert Williams and Cyrus D. Bell to bring a convention of the National Colored Personal Liberty League led by Henry Clay Hawkings to Omaha August 17, 1898 during the Expo.

[37] Governor Holcomb and Mayor Moores welcomed those in attendance, and Cyrus Bell and J. C. Parker of Omaha and D. Augustus Stroker, J. Milton Turner, and Dr. Crossland played prominent roles as well with P. G. Lowery supplying music.

[38] On August 22, the National Colored Press Association met in Omaha as well[39] In 1880, he was chairman of the colored Campaign Club in Omaha, and along with Dr. W. H. C. Stephenson, James O. Adams, John R. Simpson, and Peter Williams organized an effort to organize black's in Nebraska as a firm voting block and to express the power of the block by enumerating both urban and rural blacks in the state.

[40] Later that year Stephenson and Overall sought selection at a convention of black Republicans to be put forward for the state legislature.

[45] In 1890, he finally gained the Republican nomination for the state legislature and received the endorsement of the labor party,[46] but he lost the election.

[48] On May 28, 1898, Overall attended a meeting of the National Federation of Colored Labor of the United States, where he was elected general statistician.