Zion Cemetery: Tampa's first Black cemetery, sold off, "bodies removed" on paper, coffins still in the ground (3721 N. Florida Ave., Tampa, 1901–1951)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1901 · Places: Florida
SUMMARYZion Cemetery: Tampa's first Black cemetery, sold off, "bodies removed" on paper, coffins still in the ground (3721 N. Florida Ave., Tampa, 1901–1951) [Connections: Tampa Bay, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDZion was created in 1901 on about 2.5 acres by Richard Doby, a "wealthy black businessman" (Tampa Heights Historic Association). Doby sold it in 1907 to a Black-owned casket company; by the mid-to-late 1920s white businessmen owned it and divided it for development after reporting that "the bodies had all been removed." About 1949 the Tampa Housing Authority assembled the land for Robles Park Village by purchase or eminent domain; construction crews dug up three coffins in 1951. EJI reports the apartments "were initially open only to white residents." Robles Park Tenant Council vice president Clark Simmons: "People have said for years that we were built on a cemetery." In 2019 archaeologist Eric Prendergast's ground-penetrating radar found "[r]eflections of rectangular objects that are the size and shape of coffins between four and six feet in depth," in east-west rows
PATTERNA paper statement that the dead were moved let a Black cemetery be sold, built over, and housed for white tenants
LENS (WW9)That was our city: they wrote "removed" on paper and built the housing on top of us
DISPUTEDThe founder's name is "Doby" (THA) or "Dolby" (EJI)
OPENThe 1920s deed and the "removed" statement itself; the 1951 city statement about a 1925 relocation