TAMPA, Fla — In a show of support for a historical wrong, the city of Tampa helped a newly-established community-based committee form a non-profit organization to manage the restoration of Zion Cemetery.
It is a segregation-era cemetery burial ground that was destroyed and redeveloped to make room for an all-white public housing development along North Florida Avenue.
Assistant City Attorney Toyin Aina-Hargrett led the charge to file paperwork and notified the Zion Archaeological Advisory Committee on Thursday that the non-profit was official.
“…We are established and really need to set the first meeting,” she said.
The formation of the non-profit will also allow the committee to receive $50,000 in funds the city promised to donate to help establish a memorial.
Yet, members of the committee remain unsatisfied.
“I am so taken back, that the city has thought it would be good if we just throw them a piece of crumbs, which was $50,000 to shut them up, or they'll be quiet and go away,” said Yvette Lewis, president of the Hillsborough NAACP.
The Tampa Housing Authority, which owns most of the land where archaeologists found graves, estimates it will take $2 million to $5 million to restore the cemetery and build proper memorials. Currently, close to 300 graves are split beneath three separate properties.
THA said the goal is to bring all three parcels of land under single ownership.
“The nonprofit, you know, is a tool. It is not the end-all,” said Leroy Moore, chief operating officer for the THA. “It’s not the tool that can actually find $5 million, and sustain the operation of this park, even after those improvements are actually made.”
Lewis said she would like to see the city step in and work with all three property owners to negotiate possible land swaps so that the land is free to restore the site.
However, the city said because it does not own any of the land, that type of negotiation is not possible. Committee members have questions on if previous city administrations allowed permitting and construction on the gravesite.
The city said it had no evidence to suggest that.
Yet in a time where racial equality is top of mind, leaders say the city has an opportunity to fight the impacts of systemic racism by being a bigger partner in restoring Zion.
"I am so first of all taken back at the way that the city has continued to minimize and marginalize this cemetery,” Lewis said. “You want us to sit back and be quiet and be obedient black folks when there is still continued civil unrest going on in this city.
"This is why, because this is a racist and systemic racist, and institutional racist city that this has impacted our feelings, and our thoughts and our views. It’s ridiculous."
The city said it would be willing to offer more guidance and support but does not have board voting power at the request of the NAACP.
The local NAACP president said she would welcome the city to the board if it were willing to take more ownership of the decisions she said it allowed in the past.
Emerald Morrow is a 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.
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