{"id":140858,"date":"2026-02-02T17:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T17:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/140858\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T17:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T17:34:12","slug":"florida-senate-approves-black-history-museum-in-st-johns-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/140858\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Senate approves Black History Museum in St. Johns County"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Senate Government Oversight and Accountability Committee approved a proposal today to establish the Florida Museum of Black History in St. Johns County. The decision follows a recommendation from a state-appointed task force to locate the museum at a site west of St. Augustine.<\/p>\n

The 2023 task force recommended the St. Johns County site after reviewing various options across the state. Eatonville, a historic town, was also considered because it is one of the first self-governing all-Black municipalities in the US.<\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Leek, a Republican from Ormond Beach, supported the museum during the committee hearing, emphasizing it is necessary for a complete picture of the state\u2019s heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you can tell the story of Florida without also telling the history of Black Floridians,\u201d Leek said. \u201cSo, this is going to be a museum that celebrates the history of Black Floridians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposal awaits action in the Florida House. While the Senate committee advanced the bill, the identical House version hasn\u2019t been scheduled for a hearing. This comes as the Florida Legislature enters the fourth week of its 60-day annual session.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Senate Government Oversight and Accountability Committee approved a proposal today to establish the Florida Museum of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9316,28,30,100,68421,29,4215,5902,22316],"class_list":{"0":"post-140858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-black-history","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-legislature","12":"tag-florida-museum","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-florida-senate","15":"tag-st-johns-county","16":"tag-tom-leek"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}