Along a strip of South Missouri Avenue in downtown Clearwater, cars rush by on the busy thoroughfare, passing a CVS Pharmacy and Save A Lot grocery store.
There are hundreds of graves from a Black cemetery under the road and adjacent piece of land owned by human resources firm FrankCrum.
This week, a long-running legal dispute between FrankCrum and city officials over who should pay to relocate the graves was settled.
The Clearwater Community Redevelopment Agency agreed to pay the company $7.5 million to end the litigation. It is now up to FrankCrum to decide what to do with the graves.
Advocates say the move is a step forward. They hope that, with the litigation now behind them, city officials may be more willing to come to the table to address these and other abandoned graves.
They say the city’s Black community deserves healing.
“It’s an injustice that they’ve been disrespected while they were on top of the earth,” said Diane Stephens, president of the Clearwater Colored Cemeteries Society. “Now that they’re dead, they’re still being disrespected.”
A grassroots effort
Two historically Black cemeteries in Clearwater were supposedly moved in the 1950s, but community members have long questioned if that actually happened. One of the sites, called St. Matthews Baptist Church Cemetery, was at 100 S. Missouri Ave., where FrankCrum’s campus is now located.
There are potentially more than 500 graves there. FrankCrum sued the city in 2023, saying the Community Redevelopment Agency had previously attested there weren’t human remains under the property. The company argued the city should move the graves and cover the cost of doing so.
Less than three miles north of FrankCrum, ground-penetrating radar found graves at the site of another historically Black cemetery at the intersection of Engman Street and Holt Avenue in the North Greenwood neighborhood. The Pinellas County School District and local Homeless Empowerment Program nonprofit both own parts of the land.
With the help of genealogists, the Clearwater Colored Cemeteries Society, or 3C Society, has been researching descendants of those who were buried in Clearwater’s Black cemeteries and scouring records for historical newspaper obituaries to see where people were laid to rest.
The group has been able to confirm more than 800 decedents who were interred in these cemeteries, but there could be even more. It’s unclear how many are still buried there.
But the city has declined to assist with some of the group’s requests because of the FrankCrum litigation.
“We shared with them our struggle as a group of community people trying to do what we’re doing and having to constantly come out of pocket,” 3C Society member Patriva “Triva” Mack said. “We’re saying, ‘Where are you?’”
In 2023, the state started granting money for research and protection of African-American cemeteries and has given out more than $1 million. The 3C Society has already qualified for three grants from the state, totaling more than $100,000.
The grants are used for research and covering the cost of death certificates. The group pays for everything else, such as operations or informational brochures, through private fundraising or out of their own pockets. And it says costs pile up quickly.
The 3C Society at one point asked the city to write a letter of support for a grant, which the city declined to do, citing guidance from the former city attorney that it not do so in the midst of litigation.
“That advice was about the legal process. It was not a judgment about the 3C Society or its work,” city spokesperson Allie Chandler Baier wrote in an email. “We respect the work 3C Society is doing to identify the people buried at St. Matthew’s, and we’re grateful to the many community partners who have helped keep this history from being forgotten.”
At a meeting Monday, with the Clearwater City Council acting as the city’s redevelopment agency, Stephens had a simple question for the dais:
“Are you willing to really talk to us now?”
What’s next?
None of the businesses or property owners involved with the former burial sites have identified specific solutions to relocate the lost graves.
Ashley Lowery, president and CEO of the Homeless Empowerment Program, said the organization has not conducted activity at the North Greenwood Cemetery site since the graves were found. The nonprofit is “essentially awaiting guidance” on what to do.
“We certainly recognize the historical significance of the cemetery and want to be respectful of the individuals and families connected to it,” Lowery wrote in an email.
When asked about that property, a city spokesperson referred a reporter to the school district. A spokesperson for the district did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
FrankCrum said it plans to hold meetings with community members in coming months to discuss the future of the graves at the site under its property. In a statement, it said that “because the City’s leadership refuses to lead, it will be up to our community to come up with a solution.”
FrankCrum’s campus falls within the boundaries of the Downtown Clearwater Redevelopment Area, and the money for the settlement with the Community Redevelopment Agency will come from that neighborhood’s budget.
The company has said it only agreed to the settlement because it believed the city would continue to drag out the legal process; the agreement came days before the case was supposed to go to trial.
Residents on Monday told the City Council they don’t want the city’s involvement to end with the resolution of the lawsuit.
“When I became pastor, I inherited a lot of problems I wasn’t responsible for,” Pastor Carlton Childs, a member of 3C Society, said during the meeting. “I know you guys weren’t there when a lot of this happened back in the 1900s, but you’re here now.”
Council members gave assurances that the city would continue working with the community.
“I hope you trust in the fact that we will step up and find ways to move forward,“ Council member Mike Mannino said Monday.
The 3C Society is hoping to use its research to develop a memorial garden and tell the stories of Clearwater’s pioneering Black families. The effort is personal for not only the community, but members of the group, who have family buried in these graves.
Residents hope conversations with the city continue, too.
“They’ve lost sight of the fact that we’re just a bunch of community people, mostly retired, living on a fixed income trying to make things better for the next generation,” Mack said.
3C member Lois Saylor-Bell added: “Our ancestors, too.”
