TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – A report presented to the Tallahassee City Commission in May of 2021 lays out a respectful way to mark slave graves.
The report included a small walking trail, commemorative markers, and signs just off the existing on-street parking.
Now, the renters of a city-owned golf course, the Capital City Country Club, want to buy land that is home to dozens of unmarked graves of formerly enslaved people.
That potential sale has folks like the President of the National Association for the Preservation of African-American History and Culture, Delaitre Hollinger, fired up.
He and others say it’s wrong to sell the golf course while the graves remain unmarked.
“The City of Tallahassee needs to construct the memorial now. They promised to construct the memorial about five years ago, and I think that it’s high time that we go ahead and move forward with that, certainly before the property changes hands,” Hollinger said.
At a city commission meeting in September, a city staff member said any sale of the golf course to the current renters would include deed restrictions mandating the graves be preserved.
But, Hollinger and some members of the city commission questioned what the renters have done to keep the graves dignified in the meantime. Hollinger said nothing has changed since a November 2019 study when fieldwork began.
“I know that we were almost ready to implement the memorial,” said Mayor Pro Tem Dianne Williams-Cox. “There were some complications dealing with semantics. That’s what it was. Semantics or wording or what to be prescribed or described on the memorial.”
Then, a city staff member said, devastating tornadoes came in May of 2024, which further delayed efforts and is one of the reasons the country club, as renters, wants to purchase the property — to borrow money and make improvements.
“There has been work being done. It may not be what we want, may not be the conclusion we want, but here’s an opportunity to continue this work,” Williams-Cox said. “Make sure that the individuals who are there are memorialized, are respected, and are cornered off and sectioned off.”
Hollinger isn’t buying the tornado excuse, and he said the property should not change hands until a memorial is actually constructed.
Williams-Cox said she wouldn’t support a sale of the country club until the current renters agreed not to develop the land and a proper memorial was written into the deed.
“The two deal breakers for me was the cemetery and making sure that this land won’t be developed into houses and condos and all that kind of stuff,” she said. “I won’t be here forever, none of us will be. But for the time that we can be here to make sure that doesn’t happen, I think that we are responsible for doing that.”
Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey said a sale is an opportunity to turn what’s currently a $1 per year lease into substantial money for the city.
“Making sure that we properly preserve the cemetery with signage, with maintenance, with everything that the community came together to design,” Dailey said. “And I think we have an incredible opportunity to do so. So I am willing to take the next step and have it be brought to us, but I wanted to be very clear on the record what my thoughts are.”
Commissioner Jeremy Matlow seized on a quote from a public speaker who said the slaves “were sold in life, don’t sell them in death.”
“But I don’t think with everything we’ve been told [at the meeting], the entire history that we’ve seen today, the financials that were given to us today, we can move forward,” Matlow said.
Commissioner Curtis Richardson asked city staff why the memorial hadn’t already been completed when preliminary plans were introduced in 2021.
“I know that there have been obstacles, but that’s been a long time for nothing to have happened. And so I would like to hear some explanation as to why this hasn’t happened,” Richardson said.
He said he would not authorize a sale “at this point.”
“But I’m not in a position to go forward with actually turning this property over to the club at this point,” Richardson said. “I would be concerned that given the fact that they’ve had this property for 69 years now and have known for several years that those grave sites existed and they have done nothing, they have done nothing themselves as an organization to move that effort forward for the memorialization and commemoration of that site.”
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“To my knowledge, the design has been completed,” a city staff member said. “It was impacted by the tornadoes, and the focus right now is on site or to my knowledge has been on site readiness. We can bring those details back if the commission is interested in the next item.”
Commissioner Jack Porter said she made another motion in March of 2024, before the tornadoes, seeking a progress report on the memorial.
“Because I understand that there was a plan in 2021 that was presented to us, but has anything happened since then?” she asked.
Ultimately, the city commission voted 3-2, with Matlow and Porter against, to authorize the city manager to negotiate a sale and bring back a sale option to the commission. That option would likely include a deed restriction preventing development and requiring the new owners to construct or maintain a memorial.
Any sale will be contingent on a commission vote at a later date. The general manager for the course declined an interview with WCTV, and the GM did not grant access for WCTV to see the current state of the graves.
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