A task force will announce its top picks for Florida’s first Black History Museum at the end of the week.
Finalists in the running for the museum will be notified early this week, and asked to appear in front of the Florida Museum of Black History Task Force in Tallahassee on Friday, April 19.
Sarasota is one of the sites being considered.
Chair of the task force Senator Geraldine Thompson said by Friday night, Floridians should know where the museum will be located.
“We're going to invite the top three, maybe four, to come to that meeting on April 19, to answer questions or to clarify things that we may be uncertain about. And on the 19th we will know basically, where the museum should go,” Thompson said.
Thompson said Eatonville is being considered along with other Central Florida sites like Seminole County. She said Eatonville’s history as the oldest Black incorporated municipality in the United States makes it a logical choice for the museum.
Orange County Schools have announced they will donate 10 acres from the former Hungerford School site in Eatonville for a museum.
The district and the town of Eatonville are currently working on a way to release those 10 acres from pending litigation over the former site of the area’s first Black school.
“So we're looking at Eatonville,” said Thompson “We're hoping that the litigation regarding the land, the Hungerford land, hopefully that'll be resolved soon. And we won't have that cloud.”
The new museum will teach the history of Black Americans in Florida starting with the history of slavery and segregation in the state. The museum was created by a 2023 Florida law.
By July 1 of this year, the task force will submit a report detailing their recommendations for the Black History Museum to Governor Ron DeSantis, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Minority Leader of the Senate, and the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.
Read more about Florida’s Black History Museum here.
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