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local authority FloridaThe capital city has voted to sell a city-owned golf course to a once-segregated country club built over the graves of enslaved people, despite vocal opposition from local residents and historians.
Proof Florida’s slave-holding past lies just beneath the surface of Capital City Country Club’s manicured greens in one of Tallahassee’s most sought-after neighborhoods, as do the long-lost burial grounds of enslaved people who lived and died on a plantation that was once filled with cotton.
Tallahassee The City Commission voted 3 to 2 Wednesday to sell the publicly owned 178-acre (72-hectare) golf course to a politically connected country club for $1.255 million.
Graves beneath the golf course
Back in 2019, with archaeologists National Park Service They identified 23 unmarked graves and 14 potential graves near the 7th hole of the golf course, which is semi-private and currently operates on city-owned land.
Across the country, thousands of unmarked and forgotten cemeteries of enslaved people are at risk of destruction, as descendants and volunteers fight development and indifference.
The deal has reopened the painful wounds of Tallahassee’s segregated past and rekindled concerns from local activists who questioned the city’s years-long delay in creating a memorial site to preserve unmarked graves, more than four years after the commission voted to do so.
“Like many other black people in the United States, I am a descendant of slaves. I don’t have the ability to visit my ancestors’ graves. I don’t even have the luxury of knowing most of their names. I don’t know their history. And that’s why I’m so strong in opposing the sale,” said Justin Jordan, a student at Florida A&M University, the city’s public historically black university.
terms of deal
At the time the real estate deal came up at the commission meeting in October, no work had been done on the memorial. Since then, the city has installed a historical marker and cleared the paths near the cemetery, while golfers continue their play on the course’s rolling hills.
Under the terms of the deal, the live oak tree-lined property – prime real estate less than a mile from Florida’s Capitol building – must remain an 18-hole golf course and not be developed. Approximately $98,000 of the proceeds of the sale will fund the construction of a memorial site for the city cemetery, with public access to the memorial guaranteed, on the condition that residents “will not interfere with any active golf play.”
As part of the deal, the country club has also committed to hosting FAMU’s golf team for practices and collegiate competitions, and the school’s board of trustees has endorsed the agreement.
Still, some residents are skeptical about selling the land that was once a whites-only club, and they questioned the price tag of the huge parcel, given the potential for future development.
The country club, which lists Florida Attorney General James Uthmeyer as its vice president according to its 2023 tax filing, has long hosted power players in the city.
Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, who voted against the sale, said, “Are we going the way of a golf course in Leon County that is Mar-a-Lago 2? I’m not even kidding.”
Matlow did not name Uthmeyer, but he did mention the club’s “heavy hitters” and “attorney generals” with “connections to the president.” trump“In their concerns about land privatization.
Uthmayer’s spokesperson did not respond to questions about his current relationship with the club.
history of separation
Over the decades, the land has gone back and forth between public and private ownership, with the club paying a modest $1 per year in rent to the city for the past nearly 70 years.
This lease has been in place since 1956, when the club returned to private ownership, allowing it to circumvent a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned desegregation of public parks and recreational facilities. The club’s former members included a judge whose nomination to the country’s highest court failed after he faced questions over whether he had helped privatize the club to avoid consolidation.
Ultimately, the deal received the support of a majority of the commissioners, including the board’s two black members.
Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox called for moving on from the city’s past and investing revenues back into public services.
“When we talk about considering the racist, segregationist history of this country club, that’s OK,” he said. “Be consistent with all the other things we’ve had to overcome to be able to move forward.”
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Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.