St. Pete’s South Mole beach, pictured, where Demens Landing is now, was the ‘colored-only’ spot Credit: Photo courtesy of the City of St. Petersburg

Just because it’s ugly doesn’t mean you should look away. Tampa Bay is a great place to live for many, but there’s often a dark past buried beneath the surface.

The St. Pete Pier’s “Bending Arc” sculpture, for example, is a reminder that Spa Beach was “whites-only.”

A two-hour trolley tour by the St. Petersburg Museum of History will explore that topic, plus local lunch counter sit-ins and civil disobedience as residents lived through Jim Crow and fought for their civil rights in the Sunshine City.

Tickets for the Civil rights trolley tour that leaves St. Petersburg History Museum on Saturday, Aug. 31 are still available and start at $35.
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This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2024.