Page 32 - Florida Sentinel 6-11-21

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The Tampa Tiger Bay Club Will Honor Two Former State Senators
Governor DeSantis Signs Cemetery Bill
Senator Cruz and Representative Driskell, sponsors of the Cemetery Bill.
The Tampa Tiger Bay Club will honor two former State Senators during its 5th Annual Lifetime Achievement Awards Dinner June 21, 2021.
The organization plans to award former Sens. Arthenia Joyner and John Grant at the event, which will begin at6p.m.intheCubanClub Ballroom in Ybor City. Tickets are available to the event which is open to the public.
Each year, the nonpartisan political group presents life- time achievement awards to one Democrat and one Repub- lican.
The Tampa Tiger Bay Club said although the two candi- dates are political opposites — Grant a Republican and Joyner a Democrat — the two found common ground on is- sues, such as education.
Joyner served as a mem- ber of the State Senate from 2006 to 2016, and was the Senate Minority Leader dur- ing her last two years in office. Before that, Joyner repre- sented parts of Tampa Bay in the House, which she was first elected to in 2000.
Joyner broke ground as the first Black woman to prac- tice law in Hillsborough
County, and she has contin- ued her practice for 51 years. She was also elected to serve as President of the National Bar Association.
Joyner is a renowned civil rights leader who was arrested multiple times as a student in high school and college for challenging injustice. She is currently the longest practic- ing Black woman lawyer in Florida.
Grant represented Pasco and Hillsborough Counties in the Florida Senate from 1986 to 2000, and served in the state House from 1980 to 1986. He was also a lawyer with Tampa Estate Planners Law Firm for more than 40 years and specializes in estate planning, trust and probate administration, medi- ation and elder law.
It was Friday evening when the Hillsborough County Sen- ator Janet Cruz and Repre- sentative Fentrice Driskell learned that Governor Ron DeSantis had signed the Cemetery Bill. The bill had passed unanimously by both chambers. The bill will create a panel of researchers to study forgotten or abandoned ceme- teries and burial grounds across the state. There could be as many as 3,000 unpreserved African American cemeteries in the state.
The bill (HB 37), carried by Tampa Democrats Sen. Janet Cruz and Rep. Fentrice Driskell, identifies lost cemeteries by creating a Task Force on Abandoned African American Cemeteries.
“The purpose of the task force is to develop and rec- ommend strategies that will preserve this history and en- sure dignity and respect for the forgotten and deceased,” Rep. Driskell said. “We now find our chance as a state to work together to think through the best ways to honor those who were forgot- ten and, oftentimes, de- graded.”
The 10-member task force established by the bill would be led by the Secretary of State, who would also appoint representatives from the Bu- reau of Archaeological Re- search in the Division of Historical Resources, the NAACP, the Florida Council of Churches, the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network, the Florida Public Archaeology Network, the cemetery indus- try and a local government. The Senate President and
House Speaker would select one lawmaker each to round out the task force.
The hidden history of Florida’s African American cemeteries was brought to light in Rep. Driskell’s dis- trict by reporting from Paul Guzzo for the Tampa Bay Times. Guzzo was tipped off by cemetery researcher Ray Reed about death certificates Reed had come across listing a burial ground called Zion Cemetery that Reed could not find.
After months of research, Guzzo and reporting part- ner James Borchuck dis- covered more than 800 people were buried along North Florida Avenue (in what is now Robles Park pub- lic housing) in what was be- lieved to be Tampa’s first all-Black cemetery. Re- searchers have already found death certificates for 382 peo- ple buried at the site between 1913 and 1920, as well as 120 coffins.
That discovery started in- formal investigations around the state, which uncovered more African American cemeteries. Rep. Driskell said African American ceme- teries had been discovered under MacDill Air Force Base and King High School in Tampa, near Tropicana Field in St. Pete, in Tallahassee under a golf course, and in Jacksonville under a road.
Under the bill, the task force would hold its first meeting by Aug. 1 and con- clude its mission by March 11, 2022.
The Sentinel was unable to reach Sen. Cruz for a comment in this article.
SEN. SEN. ARTHENIA JOHN
JOYNER
GRANT
PAGE 14-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2021