WIMAUMA, Fla. — A ground-penetrating radar search just outside of the First Prospect Missionary Baptist Church cemetery boundaries in Wimauma shows dozens of graves scattered across the rest of the property and in a neighbor’s yard.
"It's important for us as a community to try to find as many of these burials as we can,” said community activist Jackie Brown.
Brown has been working with the church in its efforts to learn if there is any room for more burials in its connected cemetery off Edina Street. The segregation-era cemetery dates back more than 100 years and has continued burials through recent years.
However, after researching death records, Brown came to believe there were many more people buried at the site than the headstones reflected. She says this could include African Americans who were once enslaved.
A July search through GeoView Associates, Inc. found 98 suspected, unmarked graves within the cemetery boundaries. A late November and early December search yielded 31 potential graves outside of where the cemetery is visible. Some of those possible graves turned up on a neighbor’s property.
"Surprised, very surprised,” neighbor Vanessa Dorsey said. “I never know it was…other, you know, burials out here.”
GeoView CEO Mike Wightman, who also helped find 145 graves in a field at King High School, said the biggest challenge in the second phase of the Wimauma search was getting some of the land cleared for the radar searches.
With help from a contractor, Wightman and a small team of technicians were able to scan a large portion of the church and neighboring properties.
“He went through and cleared these areas that were previously inaccessible,” Wightman said.
For Brown, getting this access meant solving a grave dilemma.
“There are people who have been forgotten,” she said.
The next steps include finding a name for the cemetery. Brown says it never had one officially.
Right now, she is soliciting requests from the community and is planning to have a celebration sometime next year. She is also working to get younger generations involved and excited about understanding the area’s history.
“I've been a part of the cemetery project now for a couple of months,” Sydny Coronado said. “I just wanted to…let the older generations know that they have support from the younger generations.”
Emerald Morrow is an investigative reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. Like her on Facebook and follow her on X. You can also email her at emorrow@10tampabay.com.