historic cemetery

The display uncovers findings about more than 40 lost burial grounds in the Hillsborough County region. Over half of them were used as sites for "colored" people in the era of segregation.

"Grand Rising" will include displays of the Black Cemetery Network's research and documentation, as well as performances by artists and dancers.

Bill sponsor Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said that after four years of pushing the measure, it has become a “labor of love.”

Nigel Rudolph and others in his field argue that burial grounds serve the living more so than the dead, justifying the need for their discovery and protection. Florida lawmakers are recognizing this in the upcoming legislative session.

State Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, has said that state archaeologists believe there are nearly 3,000 lost Black cemeteries in Florida.

Only a fraction of the state's cemeteries have been officially located and documented.

It's home to the infamous case known as the "Groveland Four," in which four young black men were falsely accused and convicted of raping a 17-year-old white woman in 1949.

The state senator who proposed a bill to catalog and restore abandoned African American cemeteries across Florida said she is disappointed the legislation died in the just-ended session at the Capitol but isn’t giving up the fight.

The lack of action on the legislation stunned supporters and the reasons for its demise were not clear.

One woman's quest to learn where her ancestors may have been buried led to a historic African-American burial ground believed to hold the graves of former slaves from Welaunee and Fleischmann plantations in Leon County.

While one University of South Florida anthropologist continues her work further exploring more than 40 unmarked cemeteries and burial grounds in Hillsborough County, another is focusing on lost Black cemeteries.

Since the owner of Memorial Park Cemetery died in 2019, the city of Tampa has invested considerable time, manpower and money to protect and improve the grounds of the resting place for Black veterans.