Graves from five erased Black or mostly Black cemeteries have been discovered throughout Tampa Bay in recent years, but the issue is not unique to this area.
Such burial grounds have been found throughout the nation.
So, a team of University of South Florida professors and doctoral students created the Black Cemetery Network website at blackcemeterynetwork.org to serve as a hub for the movement to bring dignity to those cemeteries.
“We built this network so that we can have conversations with groups across the country,” said Antoinette Jackson, the USF professor of anthropology who founded the network. “Together, we can work toward national advocacy that can protect these sites.”
The website allows registered participants to add erased or endangered Black cemeteries to a national map.
It also links to research and educational projects focused on Black cemeteries.
Through an online search, the Tampa Bay Times found mentions of a dozen examples outside of Tampa Bay where headstones but not bodies were removed from Black cemeteries in the years before the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
“If these sacred sites weren’t paved over, many went into disrepair as they didn’t receive the same dedicated resources as other burial grounds or were forgotten as cities grew around them and local communities were displaced,” the network’s press release says.
