TAMPA, Fla. — More than three years after geophysical crews confirmed 145 graves from the erased Ridgewood Cemetery in a field at King High School, Hillsborough County Schools unveiled a new reflection pond memorial to honor those buried at the site.
“For decades, they were forgotten,” said school board member Henry “Shake” Washington. “But not anymore.”
The site of Ridgewood Cemetery has been designated a historical site by the state of Florida and now has a historical marker just outside of new fencing placed around the unmarked burials. Inside the fenced area is a new reflection pond and memorial inspired by a dove’s wings.
“When you think about what symbolizes releasing one’s soul is a dove, and the wings of the dove, and that’s what the top of the memorial is — emblematic of wings that are lifting the souls up to the seventh heaven,” said Tampa-based architect Jerel McCants, who designed the memorial.
“It’s something that’s supposed to honor the persons interred here,” said Tampa-based architect Jerel McCants. “So, everything in the memorial is based on sacred or religious mathematics. Everything is designed and divisible by seven, which is that number of completeness.”
Inside the 35-square foot walkway is a 21-square foot reflection pond with a 7-foot pedestal supporting two large “wings,” each 7 feet wide and 21 feet long.
McCants says the wings are set at 42 degrees, which is the ideal angle to see glimpses rainbow when the pumped water from the reflection pool falls from the wings.
Hillsborough County Schools hired McCants after former county worker Ray Reed shared research in 2019 with the district about possible graves at King High School.
“Every human life matters,” he said. “It mattered then. It matters today.”
Records show the city of Tampa in 1933 purchased a 40-acre parcel of land and established a pauper’s cemetery for African Americans and other poor residents of the city. The cemetery remained in use through 1954.
Death certificates show there were at least 250 people once buried at the site.
The school district purchased the land in 1959 and developed property around the footprint of the cemetery.
“They never noticed that a cemetery that they own was now gone…it was disclosed in the leases. You can’t forget a cemetery. You have to just not give a darn about the people there,” he said. “It was predominately Black, African American folks.”
The cemetery did also inter indigent residents of other races.
Ridgewood is one of several destroyed and erased African American cemeteries uncovered over the last few years. Reed’s research was the catalyst for a 2019 Tampa Bay Times investigation that led to the search for Zion Cemetery in 2019.
There, archaeologists found nearly 300 graves under public housing apartments, a towing lot and a neighboring business property. Zion is believed to be the first African American cemetery in Tampa.
Hillsborough County NAACP President Yvette Lewis called attention to all of the erased and endangered cemeteries during the ceremony.
“If you don’t know your history, you’re bound to repeat it,” she said. “Look at Memorial Cemetery. It’s a shame ‘fore God. There is no excuse,” she said of the historically Black cemetery that a developer recently purchased in a four-minute county auction after the city of Tampa placed liens on the property and foreclosed upon it.
“The time is now for Black folks’ voice to be heard in this city,” she said. “We’re the only ones where they keep finding these cemeteries. They keep erasing our history. They keep digging over us. They act like we didn’t even matter, like we didn’t even contribute the blood, sweat and the tears to help build this city."
It's a city Lewis says is indebted to its Black residents for past injustices.
"It's time for Black folks in this city, in this county to be compensated. Compensation, reparation and appropriations. It is time," Lewis said.
Emerald Morrow is an investigative reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. Like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter. You can also email her at emorrow@10TampaBay.com. To read more about the search for lost African American burial grounds in the Tampa Bay area, head to wtsp.com/erased.