Black History

World War II flight officer Daniel Keel is among the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. He recently attended a chartering ceremony for Tampa Bay's chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. as a guest of honor.

Tampa Bay Forward includes essays by Tampa Bay community figures, industry leaders and innovators; economic, social, and political histories of Tampa Bay’s Black community; profiles of Black leaders from business, the arts and sports; and analyses of the last 50 years of the community’s growth and progress.

Residents seemed equal parts enthusiastic about the investments being made in their Sarasota community but skeptical about how this promised change could attract outside developers.

The century-old building served as a boarding house during the segregation era. Famous visitors included Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and James Brown.

The Buffalo Soldiers, the first all-Black regular U.S. Army regiments established by Congress in 1866, camped out in Tampa prior to their deployment to Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

State and local police have been collecting information about people they suspect of being in the country without legal documentation – and filing it in a database.

The Clearwater City Council voted June 18 to hand over a downtown block to the Church of Scientology. Grassroots group Save the Garden is racing to collect 7,000 signatures in time to undo that decision.

“At a time when opportunities were not always equal and barriers still existed, these men answered the call to serve," St. Petersburg Fire Rescue Chief Keith Watts said.

On “The Florida Roundup,” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eugene Robinson discussed his book "Freedom Won, Freedom Lost" and the ongoing struggle for civil rights in America.

This week on "The Florida Roundup," we dive into some notable moments in Florida's Black history on Juneteenth.

On "Florida Matters Live & Local," Tampa Bay History Center curator Fred Hearns talked about Juneteenth and the importance of this historical event to the state of Florida.

The Black Cemetery Network, formed in the Tampa Bay area, hosted its first national conference in St. Petersburg. Founder Antoinette Jackson says Florida is "leading the national conversation" on the work to identify, preserve, and record African American burial grounds and their equally buried histories.