CLEARWATER, Fla. — A group of stakeholders and descendants of a forgotten cemtery in Clearwater held a meeting to discuss the area around Missouri Avenue. 

What You Need To Know

  • Descendants and stakeholders continue to finalize their proposal for what to do with the forgotten African American cemetery in Clearwater under Missouri Avenue

  • Tuesday night, a design team held a regular meeting in Clearwater to discuss how they would like to commemorate the people who are buried at this site

  • It's estimated that over 500 African Americans are buried around the area of the FrankCrum building and Missouri Avenue

Zebbie Atkinson IV knows just how important every discussion is.

“The right thing to do is to do something,” said Atkinson, former president of the Clearwater/Upper Pinellas Branch of the NAACP.

He’s been a part of this journey in trying to rectify the forgotten African American cemetery from St. Matthews Baptist Church.

“Everything is progressing,” he said.

That’s why, at this meeting at the Clearwater North Greenwood Library, the design team, which includes descendants of some of the people buried at the erased site, is discussing how they should commemorate and honor the remains of people buried under the area around the FrankCrum building.

“We get together, we talk about whatever we need to talk about, we yell at each other, we fuss at each other and then when we have to go and talk to somebody, everybody's on the same page,” Atkinson said.

Part of what they want to do is move the graves from the FrankCrum site over to another forgotten cemetery in North Greenwood.

Tuesday night, Atkinson said the group would discuss what they want the memorial that would be placed at that new location to look like.

“Do they want granite stone with names on it, the names that we can find? Do they want, you know, lights all around? Do they want a fence? Do they know water feature?” Atkinson said. “This is that meeting.”

According to Atkinson, the descendants met with the city recently and are still working on putting the final touches on their proposal.

“We are willing to help in any way that we can help to rectify this,” Atkinson said.

It’s been a long road, and though the solution might be costly, something has to be done.

“There are others that don't know if their family is, you know, even though we can see their anomalies, we'll never know who is where,” Atkinson said.

Spectrum News reached out to the city of Clearwater to hear about the latest developments but were told that, because of pending legal action, they won’t be providing any comment.

According to our partners at the Tampa Bay Times, it’s estimated that it could cost millions of dollars to move the graves from the site on Missouri Avenue.