Tampa Bay high school students will get hands-on history lessons this month when the Rose Hill Cemetery Place-Based Learning Project stages “Unknown: Memorializing African American Cemeteries.'' But opportunities for learning on site and at home are available, for free, to anyone.
The learning opportunities come in the wake of shoulda-won-a-Pulitzer reporting from legendary Tampeño Paul Guzzo who unlocked a trove of stories regarding Tampa Bay’s hidden Black cemeteries (Guzzo is a multiple Best of the Bay–winner, which is probably better than a pull-it-sir anyway).
Through the Rose Hill Cemetery Place-Based Learning Project, some students have already created memorial plaques to be placed in Tampa Bay segregated cemeteries during the last weekend of February (see a schedule below)
“The Project engages students in arts-based and place-based learning and addresses the historical processes that lead to unknown burials in our African American cemeteries,” project director Shannon Peck-Bartle wrote in an email to Creative Loafing Tampa.
So far, the cemeteries involved include Rose Cemetery in Tarpon Springs, Clearwater’s Whispering Souls Cemetery, Ridgewood Cemetery located at King High School in Temple Terrace. Over time, many African American gravesites have become unmarked because of “destroyed records, haphazard burials, and limited funding resulted in many unmarked and misplaced graves.”
Founded in the early 1900s, Rose Cemetery is the largest intact segregated cemetery in Pinellas County.
“I think there are many interested teachers, students, and community members who are concerned about the future of our African American cemeteries,” Peck-Bartle said, “Our program is a path forward to bring communities together for the preservation of these cemeteries through education.
Participating Tampa Bay area schools are King High School, Steinbrenner High School, St. Pete High School, Largo High School, Palm Harbor University, Seminole High School, and Richard O. Jacobson High School.
Some graves have been lost altogether and are still being discovered. Ridgewood Cemetery was the focus of a 2019 Tampa Bay Times article after 145 caskets were discovered under part of King high’s campus.
“Sadly, we can all connect with the human experience of death regardless of race, creed, and wealth,” Peck-Bartle said, “These cemeteries connect us all at a personal level which can be a powerful learning opportunity."
The project has more to offer than plaque painting, as well. If you are an educator and want to get involved, the website has curriculum and lesson plans available for use with ”free curricular material to secondary social studies teachers interested in infusing African American and Afro-Caribbean history into their classroom.”
But anyone in the community can take advantage of the project. As the website states, it “serves as a community resource, allowing local community members to explore and discover an expanding archival collection dedicated to preserving the history and memory of those buried at the cemetery.”
- Monday, Feb. 22 Whispering Souls Cemetery, 2698 South Dr., Clearwater
- Wednesday, Feb. 24 Ridgewood Cemetery, 6815 N 56th St., Temple Terrace (King High School)
- Thursday, Feb. 25 Rose Cemetery, 24 N Jasmine Ave, Tarpon Springs
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This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2021.