Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 4-16-21

Local
Former City Council Candidate Appointed To Serve On Two County Advisory Committees
History Center Receives $250,000 Grant To Expand Black History Gallery
Nicholas Glover, a for- mer candidate for Tampa City Council, was appointed to the Hillsborough County Citizens Advisory Committee by Commissioner Harry Cohen and the Hillsborough County Regional Transit Au- thority’s (HART) Metropoli- tan Planning Organization (MPO) Citizens Advisory Committee.
As a community represen- tative on these committees, Glover will advocate for in- clusive community input on issues being contemplated by the Board of County Com- missioners and improved transportation accessibility in Hillsborough County.
“It’s an honor to be ap- pointed to serve on these two very important and influen- tial committees as we work to make community assets like transportation more equi- table and accessible,” said
NICHOLAS GLOVER ...To serve on 2 County Committees
Glover. “We need to ensure that local government works for the citizens of Hillsbor- ough County. I’m looking forward to serving the com- munity in these new and ex- citing ways.”
An experienced senior leader, Nicholas Glover has a long history of public
service and advocacy. Glover is Vice President of
Government Affairs & Advo- cacy for the Tampa Bay Chamber, leading public pol- icy efforts on behalf of small businesses in the region. Pre- viously, he served as Sr. Commercial Officer & Florida Market Manager for Gas South, responsible for the business and growth strategy for the State of Florida. Prior to working with Gas South, he worked for nearly a decade in New York at American Express in marketing strategy and at The NASDAQ Stock Market in equity capital markets.
He is a 2020 Tampa Bay Business Journal 40 under 40 award recipient. Addi- tionally, he serves as the Chairman of the Urban League of Hillsborough County. He and his wife, Caitlin have three children.
Tampa Electric and TECO Peoples Gas have awarded a $250,000 grant to help the Tampa Bay History Center tell the more than 500-year story of the Black experience in Tampa Bay.
Funding will be used to re- place and expand a portion of the History Center’s perma- nent gallery space that will focus more fully on Black his- tory in the Tampa Bay area.
“From Afro-Cuban cigar rollers in Ybor City to the Civil Rights era, Black history is currently woven into all of our galleries,” said Rodney Kite- Powell, Director of the His- tory Center’s Touchton Map Library. “However, this ex- pansion will allow us to go deeper and highlight even more voices.”
The grant is part of Tampa Electric’s and Peoples Gas’ support of organizations and initiatives advancing inclu- sion and diversity in the com- munity.
“Tampa has a rich and di- verse cultural history, and those roots built the founda- tion for the Florida of today,” said Laura Crouch, vice president of External Affairs for Tampa Electric and Peo- ples Gas. “TECO has a shared history, having been part of the fabric of this community since the 1890s. We are proud to make meaningful contribu- tions to this community that help raise awareness of Black history.”
The History Center has en- listed historian Fred Hearns to assist with the de- velopment of the new gallery space. Hearns has a long re- lationship with the History Center, serving on the mu- seum’s Board of Trustees from 2004 to 2008, and lead- ing the History Center’s Cen- tral Avenue Black History Walking Tour, which he started in 2017.
While final plans are still in development, the History Center’s Kite-Powell is com-
FRED HEARNS
mitted to bringing the breadth of Tampa Bay’s Black history into focus and into the pres- ent. “We’ll start with Este- ban, who was among the first Africans to set foot in the New World, and go all the way to the recent discovery of Zion Cemetery, which was uncov- ered underneath the Robles Park neighborhood in 2019,” he said.
One resource History Center staff will tap for the newly de- signed gallery is “Tampa Bay Stories,” an initiative launched by the History Cen- ter in 2020 as Black Lives Matter protests gathered on the streets of Tampa. “It was a historic year by any measure, and we wanted to collect sto- ries and artifacts that could help future historians illus- trate what was happening in the city,” said Kite-Powell.
Funding from TECO will be supplemented by the Light- ning Foundation and a Hills- borough County Historic Preservation Grant, bringing the total investment to more than $350,000.
“This is a major overhaul of one of our permanent gallery spaces,” said History Center President and CEO C. J. Roberts. “We opened in 2009, so after 12 years, it was time to revisit how we tell this story and see what we could improve upon.”
Work on the new perma- nent gallery space is sched- uled to begin in the spring; History Center staff believes the project will take about one year to complete.
For more information, visit tampabayhistorycenter.org or call (813) 228-0097.
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