Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 2-28-20

Local and State
Roundabout Construction On 34th Street Starts Monday
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
Beginning on Monday, March 2nd, road closures will take place on N. 34th Street. The portions of N. 34th Street that will be af- fected are between E. Columbus Drive and E. Hillsborough Avenue. Sev- eral streets in this area will be closed due to the con- struction of the controver- sial 3 Roundabouts.
A City contractor will re- place sidewalks, upgrade pedestrian ramps, add bicy- cle lanes/share the road pavement markings and repave 34th Street between
E. Columbus Drive to E. 18th Avenue and E. Hills- borough Avenue as part of the 34th Street Safety Im- provement project.
The project includes the construction of three (3) roundabouts on N. 34th Street at the intersections of E. 21st Avenue, E. Lake Av- enue and E. Osborne Av- enue.
The project will be con- structed in multiple phases. During Phase 1, the contrac- tor will construct two (2) roundabouts on N. 34th Street at the intersections of 21st Avenue and E. Lake Avenue.
The third roundabout will
Construction trailers are being put in place.
of the Phase 1 construction. During Phase 2, the con- tractor will construct a new roundabout at the intersec- tion of E. Osborne Ave. N. 34th Street is tentatively scheduled for closure in early July 2020. Phase 2 is expected to take three (3)
months to complete.
The Phase 3 work will
begin upon the completion of the Phase 2 construction. During Phase 3, the con- tractor will mill and overlay N. 34th Street.
The entire project is ex- pected to be completed in late fall of 2020, just in time before the city welcome the Super Bowl in 2021.
be constructed at the inter- section of N. 34th Street and E. Osborne Avenue. Phase 1 is expected to take
four (4) months to com- plete.
The Phase 2 work will begin upon the completion
UF Professor:
Other Ramification Of The Rosewood
Massacre — The Stolen Property
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
On New Year’s Day 1923, in the all-white town of Sumner, Fla., a neighbor of a white woman named Frances Tay- lor heard her screaming for help.
When the neighbor arrived, they found Taylor beaten and bruised on the floor. She blamed a Black man for her injuries. Soon, a posse of armed, white men were rounded up and on the hunt for the alleged assailant in the nearby all-Black town of Rosewood. By the end of the week, Rosewood – founded in 1870 – was gone, its buildings set ablaze by the mob and its residents either murdered or ran out of town.
Nearly a century later, the story of Rosewood is well- known, thanks to the 1997 film by John Singleton. But for dozens of years, the story was lost as some survivors feared talking about the mas- sacre.
In 1994, the Florida Legisla- ture approved compensating Rosewood survivors. How- ever, there are other ramifica- tions stemming from that event that still linger today, said Vincent Adejumo, profes- sor of African American Stud- ies at the University of Florida.
At a recent lecture at Sul- phur Springs Museum, Ade- jumo revisited Rosewood – both the town and the mas-
White mob killed the resi- dentsandburnedtheall-Black town to the ground.
sacre. One of the biggest tragedies of the event – aside from the deaths and torture of Rosewood residents – was the theft of their property, he said.
“Don’t just focus on the vi- olence – we have to talk about the thefts,” he said.
At the time of the mas- sacre, Rosewood was a pros- perous, self-sufficient town that boasted three churches, a Masonic lodge, sugarcane mills, and two general stores. Many residents were home- owners, who enjoyed symbols of middle-class life, including owning pianos, Adejumo said.
Rosewood was abandoned after the massacre and resi- dents’ land and homes were confiscated and returned to the public doll via tax sales, he said.
Today, Rosewood is part of Cedar Key, a picturesque small town that’s teeming with con- struction of new housing de- velopments. And while survivors received monetary
What’s left of Rosewood, that is now Cedar Ke,y is a marker.
compensation, there have been no attempts to restore their property to them, Ade- jumo said.
“If you can imagine if those Black people could have held on to their property, the value of the property today,” he said.
The forcible removal of Blacks from their property and confiscation of that land even- tually morphed into the imple- mentation of public policies to do so, Adejumo said.
The result was lower homeownership among Blacks, which led to a wide wealth gap between Blacks and whites. The average wealth among Black families is about $139,000. For whites, it’s $919,000, he said.
Correcting this problem will require a plethora of solu- tions, including creating en- trepreneurship programs that teach young people how to start businesses, Adejumo said.
“That can go a long way,” he said.
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