This was probably my favorite essay I wrote in undergrad. The research was sobering and eye-opening and I could’ve kept going down that rabbit hole forever if I hadn’t been on a deadline.
Language implies power; a name is never just a name. A name contains meaning, history, power struggles. To deprive a person or a place of a name is to deny them that power and that history. This power through names has been interrogated and demonstrated in both literature—such as Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon—and in real life, such as when historic Black cemeteries are seized by white builders and investors, built over, and deliberately erased. When the land is erased, so is the history of the people buried there. For years, community leaders in the Tampa Bay area have called for un-erasure: to unearth these cemeteries and return names and history to the deceased.
Take, for example, probably the most well-known example in the Tampa Bay area: Zion Cemetery. The cemetery’s erasure and rediscovery years later were covered extensively by Paul Guzzo in the Tampa Bay Times. Zion Cemetery was once part of Robles Pond, a small low-income African American neighborhood established in the late nineteenth century and named for a pond about a tenth of a mile to the south. It lay outside of Tampa, which was still segregated at the time. The cemetery came later—it was established in 1901 by Richard Doby, a wealthy Black developer, who had purchased property in the neighborhood. Hundreds of people, all Black, were buried there over several decades. Soon, Zion Cemetery became the first African American cemetery recognized by the city of Tampa; it was covered by the Tampa Times in 1923, which called Zion one of the city’s “most prominent and greatly used burial places” (qtd. in Guzzo). The ownership of Zion Cemetery changed hands several times throughout the years—Doby sold it to the Black-owned Florida Industrial and Commercial Co. in 1907, and it was auctioned off by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in 1915 to pay a debt owed by the company to Orleans Manufacturing Co. It is not known who purchased the cemetery at that time, but in 1926, Alice Fuller—a white woman—sold the land to white developer H.P. Kennedy. Kennedy was aware that he was purchasing a cemetery; in 1929, he successfully petitioned the city to have taxes cancelled on the property for 1927 and 1928 on the grounds that it was used as a cemetery. The previous month, however, he had also gained approval to build a storefront along part of the cemetery, and later sold pieces of land to other builders. Zion Cemetery disappeared from the public record as these builders constructed their businesses over the cemetery, erasing the land and the people buried there. The wider community of Robles Pond also became a target for white developers and gentrifying forces over the years. A 1950 Tampa Housing Authority meeting selected the neighborhood as a location for a white public housing development. Despite protests from Robles Pond residents, the Tampa Housing Authority seized their land through eminent domain and began construction. Part of the housing project was situated on top of Zion Cemetery. Though workers unearthed three caskets during construction, no efforts were made to halt construction or search the land for more graves. Robles Park Village officially opened in 1953; with former Black residents squeezed out of their homes, no one was left in the area to remember Zion Cemetery, and it disappeared from public consciousness. Ironically enough, Tampa eventually outgrew Robles Park Village, and the housing project once again became inhabited by low-income Black residents. The names of both the neighborhood and the cemetery were erased, paved over in favor of white builders and white residents. The cemetery remained erased until 2018, when Ray Reed, in his efforts to identify thousands of people buried without headstones in Tampa’s Cemetery for All People, came across death records for Black people buried in Zion Cemetery. With Reed’s tip, Guzzo and the Tampa Bay Times began investigating. The next year, the Tampa Housing Authority hired archaeologists to survey the Zion Cemetery land; using ground-penetrating radar, they discovered caskets still buried there, and later physically confirmed their presence through excavation. Current Robles Park Village residents have since been moved into other housing off of Zion Cemetery land, and there are plans in place to eventually turn it into a memorial.
The erasure of Zion Cemetery is not an isolated incident in the Tampa Bay area. Earlier this year, several graves from the former Oaklawn Cemetery were discovered under Tropicana Field (Weber). The land that the stadium sits on was once part of a flourishing mixed-income Black neighborhood known as the Gas Plant neighborhood, so called for the natural gas cylinders that made up the area’s skyline. Formed at the end of the nineteenth century and originally known as Cooper’s Quarters, the neighborhood was selected for redevelopment in the 1980s by the city council of St. Petersburg. Though residents fought the proposal, the city seized the land to build affordable housing and a baseball stadium. The redevelopment program displaced hundreds of Black residents from their home, erasing the names and history of both the Gas Plant neighborhood and Oaklawn Cemetery (Reese). Last year, fifty-four graves from the erased North Greenwood cemetery were discovered in Clearwater at the shuttered Curtis Fundamental Middle School, as well as a property across the street belonging to the Homeless Empowerment Program. The Clearwater City Commission had given the North Greenwood land, formerly known as Clearwater Heights, to the Board of Public Instruction in 1948 to build a segregated Black school. The city maintained that all graves had been relocated before construction began, but many Black residents correctly believed that they had never been moved (Morrow). Additionally, Port Tampa, populated by many Black residents in search of jobs, was established in the 1890s. It is unknown when the Port Tampa Cemetery opened, but it was built over and erased by MacDill Air Force Base by 1941. Port Tampa itself was annexed by Tampa in 1961. Five unmarked graves have been discovered on part of the base’s undeveloped land since 2019; in 2021, the base held a ceremony to dedicate a historic marker where Port Tampa Cemetery once stood (Guzzo). There are countless other examples, and surely countless more cemeteries and gravesites, more people and more names, to be rediscovered and restored.
As more and more of these cemeteries and histories come to light, a common theme emerges. All of the cases mentioned above begin with a vibrant Black community, soon taken over and gentrified by local government to push out that community and make room for new white residents. The old houses are bulldozed, landmarks removed, cemeteries buried and built over, and history ignored. The stolen neighborhood is then renamed to ensure the old ways are gone—Robles Pond becomes Robles Park Village. The Gas Plant neighborhood becomes Tropicana Field. Clearwater Heights becomes North Greenwood. It is an insidious facet of white supremacist violence—by erasing names, the city (and the white residents now living there) can pretend that the Black community that once thrived there never existed. When the city fails to investigate cemeteries for unmarked graves, they refuse to recognize and respect the names and dignity of the people buried there. Toni Morrison examines the power of names and the struggle of white supremacist erasure in her novel Song of Solomon. Her deliberately named protagonist, Milkman, is limited and defined by names—his own name, his family name (given to them by a white man), the name of the street he lives on. It is only when he sets out on a journey to discover his family’s true roots and the names of his ancestors—un-erasing his family’s history—does he begin to emerge from his shell. After his discovery, nearly at the end of his journey, Milkman contemplates: “How many dead lives and fading memories were buried in and beneath the names of the places in this country. Under the recorded names were other names…the real names of people, places, and things. Names that had meaning” (Morrison 329). It is an incredibly profound observation of the power of names that reflects the work of those who are uncovering Black cemeteries today, digging past official, recorded names to uncover the true names of both the land and the people buried there.
Just as Milkman’s journey to uncover his family history does not simply happen on its own, the rediscovery—the un-erasure—of Black cemeteries does not just happen. It starts at the very ground, with ordinary people who remember, who refuse to let names be buried. The North Greenwood Cemetery, for example, had been forgotten by all except those on the Clearwater Heights Reunion Committee, made up of ordinary people who had once lived in the old Clearwater Heights neighborhood. The committee, formed in 2016 by former resident Barbara Sorey-Love, soon began to raise concerns that the graves they remembered had not been moved before construction of the school, and were eventually proven right (Guzzo). Upper Pinellas/Clearwater NAACP branch president Zebbie Atkinson IV works with many of these communities, helping to advocate for their history. The work of reporters such as Paul Guzzo, the lead writer on the Tampa Bay Times’s investigation into Zion Cemetery, is additionally vital to raise public awareness. The University of South Florida is also closely involved in the process of un-erasing. Many of the archaeologists who work to confirm the existence of these graves come from the West Central Region of the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), which is hosted by USF’s Department of Anthropology. Other members of USF staff are involved in the effort as well; associate librarian and genealogist Drew Smith assisted in tracing the lineage of those buried in Zion Cemetery in hopes of finding living descendants (“USF Works With Local Community”). This work is vital in cases of rediscovered cemeteries, as descendants must have the final say in what happens to their deceased family members. Several USF faculty, staff, graduate students, and community partners are also spearheading the African American Burial Grounds & Remembering Project, a research project dedicated to identifying and preserving Black cemeteries in the Tampa Bay area, beginning with Zion Cemetery and Oaklawn Cemetery. They aim to conduct interviews and record oral histories, as well as examine church records and historical archives to identify the people buried in those cemeteries. After that, the project will open up dialogues and engage with the community on how best to remember the cemeteries and their history (“Research Project to Recover”). This work in un-erasure is not limited to the Tampa Bay area. It is being done on a state-wide level as well—in June, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that created the Task Force on Abandoned African-American Cemeteries, with the aim of studying the extent to which erased Black cemeteries exist throughout Florida and developing strategies on identifying, recording, and “preserving local history and ensuring dignity and respect for the deceased” (“Abandoned African-American Cemeteries Task Force”). The task force’s investigation is ongoing at the moment; the official report on their findings and recommendations is due by January 1, 2022. The task force is comprised of people representing several different entities including FPAN, the Florida Senate, the NAACP, and the cemetery industry. It is difficult to imagine how the governor will approve the recording of local history and why these specifically Black cemeteries were so deliberately erased from the public consciousness. Given his vehement opposition to critical race theory, it seems unlikely that he will be willing to confront the white supremacy inherent in the erasure of these cemeteries that persists to this day. Still, Dr. Antoinette Jackson, who serves in both the African American Burial Grounds & Remembering Project and the state task force, remains optimistic about the task force’s eventual results: “The governor has sanctioned the importance of African American cemeteries […] We can go where we want with that” (Lepore). The journey to un-erasure is difficult, but communities on the ground remain dedicated to remembering and preserving.
Names have history. Names have power. In the words of Drew Smith: “We die twice […] We die when our physical body dies, but we also die when the last person speaks our name. We can bring these people back because we can begin talking about them and speaking their names again” (“USF Works With Local Community”). By rediscovering and preserving old Black cemeteries, we can begin to restore names, confront white supremacy, and give power back to the people who were deliberately buried and hidden from the public consciousness. We can remember. We can un-erase.
Works Cited
“Abandoned African-American Cemeteries Task Force.” Florida Department of State, https://dos.myflorida.com/historical/archaeology/human-remains/abandoned-cemeteries/abandoned-african-american-cemeteries-task-force/.
Guzzo, Paul. “A Community, Not Just Zion Cemetery, Disappeared to Build Homes for Whites.” Tampa Bay Times, 4 Nov. 2019, https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2019/11/04/a-community-not-just-zion-cemetery-disappeared-to-build-homes-for-whites/.
Guzzo, Paul. “A Complete Timeline of Tampa’s Erased Zion Cemetery.” Tampa Bay Times, 26 Aug. 2020, https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/history/2020/08/26/a-complete-timeline-of-tampas-erased-zion-cemetery/.
Guzzo, Paul. “Archaeologists Begin Search for African American Graves in Clearwater.” Tampa Bay Times, 21 Jan. 2020, https://www.tampabay.com/news/clearwater/2020/01/21/archaeologists-begin-search-for-african-american-graves-in-clearwater/.
Guzzo, Paul. “Historic Marker Honors Black Cemetery Erased During Construction of MacDill.” Tampa Bay Times, 23 Feb. 2021, https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/history/2021/02/23/historic-marker-honors-black-cemetery-erased-during-construction-of-macdill/.
Lepore, Jill. “When Black History Is Unearthed, Who Gets to Speak for the Dead?” The New Yorker, 27 Sep. 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/04/when-black-history-is-unearthed-who-gets-to-speak-for-the-dead.
Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. Penguin, 1987.
Morrow, Emerald. “44 Potential African American Graves Found at Shuttered Clearwater School and Nonprofit Property.” WTSP, 28 Feb. 2020, https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/special-reports/erased/results-determining-if-african-american-graves-are-buried-under-pinellas-county-school-to-be-released/67-0bdd9d39-c914-4490-89d1-57747fa182ac.
Reese, Gwendolyn. “I Am: The Story of the Gas Plant Neighborhood.” The Weekly Challenger, 13 May 2021, https://theweeklychallenger.com/i-am-the-story-of-the-gas-plant-neighborhood/.
“Research Project to Recover, Engage Public on Lost History of African American Burial Grounds in Tampa Bay.” University of South Florida, 21 Dec. 2020, https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2020/research-project-to-recover-engage-public-on-lost-history-of-african-american-burial-grounds-in-tampa-bay.aspx.
“USF Works With Local Community to Uncover the Legacies of Those Forgotten.” University of South Florida, 14 Feb. 2020, https://www.usf.edu/news/2020/usf-works-with-local-community-to-uncover-legacies-of-those-forgotten.aspx.
Weber, Natalie. “3 Possible Graves Located Under Tropicana Field Parking Lots.” Tampa Bay Times, 6 Aug. 2021, https://www.tampabay.com/news/breaking-news/2021/08/06/3-possible-graves-located-under-tropicana-field-parking-lots/.