Port Tampa Cemetery Plaque

How did a cemetery simply vanish? We’re standing before the Port Tampa Cemetery Plaque, a solemn marker that commemorates a site lost to time and shrouded in a painful past. This plaque, dedicated in 2021, acknowledges the Port Tampa Cemetery, an African American burial ground that existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The cemetery served the community of Port Tampa, established in the 1890s. Many Black residents had moved to Port Tampa seeking work at the bustling port. Sadly, with the opening of Port Tampa Bay in the 1920s, these jobs dwindled, impacting the community. In the late 1930s, during the construction of MacDill Air Force Base, the cemetery was erased from the landscape. Headstones were removed, the land repurposed, and the memory of those resting there seemingly forgotten. The exact location remained unknown for decades. However, in a bittersweet discovery, a 1941 federal report on Tampa cemeteries, compiled by the Works Progress Administration, revealed the cemetery’s location within the airbase. Further investigation, including ground-penetrating radar, confirmed the presence of potential graves. The Port Tampa Cemetery Plaque stands as a testament to the lives once laid to rest here and a reminder of the importance of preserving and honoring history, even in its most difficult forms.