Black cemetery may lie at MacDill

I have a judge with a family baby buried there. MacDill also has an ugly history of racism after the cemetery was destroyed.

TAMPA — At a meeting called to announce that graves had been found at one forgotten cemetery, Hillsborough County Commissioner Les Miller dropped a bombshell about another. “There are going to be more of these found,” Miller said, then he provided a location — the South Tampa neighborhood of Port Tampa. There was no other mention of the revelation as the Hillsborough County School District went into detail about the recent discovery of 145 caskets beneath a one-acre section of King High School. But Miller might be right. Records indicate there was once an African-American burial ground in Port Tampa. Today, the land is behind the fence that marks MacDill Air Force Base. MacDill has started looking into it, spokesman Lt. Brandon Hanner told the Tampa BayTimes on Wednesday. “As of now we cannot confirm the existence of a cemetery on base,” Hanner said. “However, we do have resources that will be allocated in the near future to either confirm or deny it is on the base.”

FULL STORY

Reporter: By Paul Guzzo -- Times Staff Writer

Word Count: 378

Publication: Tampa Bay Times

Section: A DESK