TAMPA, Fla. — The discovery of nearly 130 coffins from Tampa’s first Black cemetery has prompted action from a local state legislator who wants to see a state task force formed, bodies exhumed and reimbursements to descendants of those buried at the site.
"One hundred years later, we are here to make sure the dead are honored and provide for them the respect that they and their families deserves,” said State Sen. Janet Cruz. "One hundred years later, we are here to make sure the dead are honored and provide for them the respect that they and their families deserve."
Cruz filed SB 220 this week after a Tampa Bay Times investigation helped lead the Tampa Housing Authority to find the coffins from the forgotten Zion Cemetery.
The coffins are underneath the Robles Park Village public housing development, which overlaps with the cemetery. During the construction of Robles Park Village in the 1950s, construction crews found three caskets on-site, but historical records provided no evidence of any further investigation. Crews continued on with construction over the cemetery site.
The bill calls for a partnership with the University of South Florida for a deeper investigation of the Zion Cemetery that would include exhuming bodies and offering financial support to descendants of those interred at the cemetery for costs related to reinternment, grave markers and funerals.
Upon learning about the cemetery in June, the Tampa Housing Authority immediately brought in archaeologists who used ground-penetrating radar to search the site to see if bodies were still underground. The agency also decided to start the relocation process for 96 residents living within the cemetery boundaries where bodies were found.
Despite expressing disappointment at previous administrations’ lack of concern for the Zion site, and despite immediate action taken upon discovery of a cemetery, housing authority officials have concerns about the new bill.
THA COO Leroy Moore said in a statement to 10News:
"THA was not consulted on this but we appreciate and respect our elected officials wanting to create a process for identifying statewide such “lost” African American cemeteries. We however don’t agree that in the case of ZION the cemetery should be moved as it seems to suggest in the Bill. This seems to be an intact cemetery, furthermore the site itself, even without human remains, is of historical importance to Tampa being the City’s first such cemetery. The expressed belief that…“once a cemetery, always a cemetery” we think stands for Zion. We have no desire to want to remove and reinter people who were laid to rest over 100 years ago. This site is best suitable in our opinion for re-assemblage under one ownership and preserved as historic Zion cemetery. And we hope that the owners can all come to agreement on that goal and work to achieve that result.
We will be offering to Janet Cruz some suggestions now that we know about this proposed Bill. And hope that the language can be revised to recognize that in some instances it should allow for the preservation of such cemeteries or former cemeteries. Perhaps by creating a reacquisition vehicle which can reacquire such lands for preservation and memorialization of Zion and similar such found cemeteries."
Representatives for the district that contains the Zion cemetery site say they were not consulted before the bill was written, but say they hope to work together as the bill progresses.
"I think it has to be a collaboration with Sen. Cruz, with our senator, Sen. Rouson and our state Rep. Dianne Hart,” said Tampa City Councilman Orlando Gudes. “This is our district. We're glad for anyone to join this process, but we all have to be a part of this process to make sure we are all on the same page."
As a funeral home director, Gudes feels especially connected to making sure the dead are allowed to rest with respect.
"The dead has spoken. We see that has happened,” he said. “We must move now.”
State Sen. Darryl Rouson also hopes this new bill will bring justice to those neglected at this site.
“There were those who thought by building buildings, they could obliterate the memory, the dignity of people who were buried here," he said. "But now that it's been discovered, we've gotten an opportunity to memorialize, to remember the struggle of their lives, to finally put these saints at rest with the dignity that escaped them in burial."
"It's personal to me because these are my ancestors,” said Rouson. “These are historical figures who lived through a time of segregation, discrimination. Yet they are still being discriminated against and segregated, if you will, by having the indignity of buildings and activity above their resting place."
State. Rep. Dianne Hart plans to co-sponsor the bill with State Rep. Fentrice Driskell on the House side, although her hope is that the cemetery site is preserved.
"This is a cemetery. Once a cemetery, always a cemetery," she said. "This is sacred, hallowed ground, and I don't want to see it disturbed."
Driskell joined Hart and Cruz at a press conference Friday morning to announce the bill:
“It's a very solemn discovery, but now it's time to make it right and that's really what this legislation is designed to do...to try to right a historic wrong in our community," she said.
Emerald Morrow is a reporter with 10News WTSP. Like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter. You can also email her at emorrow@wtsp.com.
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