{"id":280336,"date":"2026-05-22T03:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280336\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T03:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:00:12","slug":"tampa-bay-areas-destroyed-black-cemeteries-get-renewed-attention-at-usf-conference-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280336\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay area\u2019s destroyed Black cemeteries get renewed attention at USF conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erased Black\u00a0cemeteries<\/a> across the Tampa Bay area and other parts of the country will be the center of attention at the Black Cemetery Network\u2019s inaugural conference starting Thursday at the University of South Florida\u2019s St. Petersburg campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Antoinette Jackson, USF anthropology chair, founded the group and organized the conference to raise wider awareness of Black cemetery erasure and to strategize memorialization and preservation efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t want to be here in the same spot next year,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to have more people preserving cemeteries, less people having cemeteries erased by highways, schools, parking lots, and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers, historians, archaeologists, community leaders and descendants of those buried in erased Black cemeteries are among those in the lineup to speak at the conference.<\/p>\n

The event comes as the battle to preserve or memorialize some erased Black cemeteries remains at a stalemate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Clearwater, the FrankCrum human resources firm sued the Clearwater Community Redevelopment Agency after archaeologists found more than 358 graves from the St. Matthew\u2019s Baptist Church Cemetery on the business\u2019s property. An old 1998 development agreement from the CRA established before FrankCrum took over its current Missouri Avenue site guaranteed there were no more human remains on the site. The case is set to go to trial later this year.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Jury trial set over destroyed Black cemetery at FrankCrum’s Clearwater headquarters<\/a><\/p>\n

Just a few minutes away, ground-penetrating radar searches confirmed dozens of graves trapped under pavement and the shuttered Clearwater Fundamental School at Holt and Engman. Pinellas County Schools hired archaeologists to search in 2019 after a 10 Tampa Bay News report. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Are there are even more graves under an old Clearwater school? Probably, archaeologists say<\/a><\/p>\n

In St. Petersburg, the Florida Department of Transportation has refused to perform any searches for the old Evergreen and Moffett cemeteries that records show once existed under part of I-175 near Tropicana Field, despite pleas from the community. Old newspaper articles report crews finding bones during construction of the interstate decades ago.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Florida House minority leader calls on FDOT to search for erased Black graves under I-175<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere should also be historic landmark sign at the current Tropicana Field site to acknowledge that there were once three cemeteries there that were erased,\u201d said St. Petersburg City Councilman Corey Givens, Jr., speaking of Evergreen, Moffett and Oaklawn cemeteries. “They were bulldozed and built over, and I think it’s just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Jackson cited the history of Jim Crow as a reason why so many Black cemeteries of that era end up destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a systemic issue because Black people during those times had no legal rights,\u201d she said. \u201cLegal segregation was the law, and so that is the underlying cause for many, many of these sites, and then it just compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s conference lineup will include a keynote speech from Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, (D) District 67. She championed legislation around historic cemetery preservation after the discovery of Zion Cemetery in 2019 where archaeologists found about 300 graves under Robles Park Village apartments, Sunstate Wrecker towing lot and a warehouse property owned by businessman Richard Gonzmart. This discovery came after a Tampa Bay Times investigation<\/a> that triggered searches for other erased cemeteries across the area.<\/p>\n

Learn more about the conference here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emerald Morrow is an investigative reporter with\u00a010 Tampa Bay News. Like her on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and follow her on X<\/a>. You can also email her at\u00a0emorrow@10tampabay.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erased Black\u00a0cemeteries across the Tampa Bay area and other parts of the country will be the center of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119579,119581,119576,119577,119580,3070,119578,15848,135,9019,23643,137,136],"class_list":["post-280336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-antoinette-jackson","tag-archaeologists","tag-black-cemetery","tag-cemeteries","tag-clearwater-community-redevelopment-agency","tag-conference","tag-inaugural-conference","tag-pinellas-county-schools","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-area","tag-tampa-bay-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280336","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=280336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}