State Sen. Geraldine Thompson, Democrat from Orlando. (Photo by Colin Hackley)
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Until the very end, Democratic Sen. Geraldine Thompson of Orange County tried to stop a panel she chairs from recommending St. Johns County as the site for Florida’s Black history museum.
The Florida Museum of Black History Task Force had 10 months to come up with a plan for the construction, operation, and administration of the proposed museum but a conflict about its potential location took center stage. That contention still played out during the group’s final meeting Friday morning, during which the group had to put the final details on a report that it must send to Gov. Ron DeSantis and legislative leaders by Monday.
Ultimately, six votes outweighed Thompson’s sole vote against submitting the report officially stating that the task force recommends the state build the museum a few miles outside of downtown St. Augustine in St. Johns County. The county was the site of Florida’s first Black settlement (Fort Mose) in 1738 when the Spanish still colonized the region.
The report is not yet available to the public.
Conflict over site rankings
There was plenty of drama — nearly an hour after the meeting was supposed to end, the group hadn’t approved the report. That is because Thompson wanted to put any recommendations for the Legislature on hold until the Department of State could hire a firm to conduct a feasibility study of the task force’s top three locations: St. Johns, Eatonville in Orange County, and Opa-Locka in Miami-Dade County.
The Florida Museum of Black History contemplated three locations (Opa-Locka, Eatonville and St. Johns County) during a meeting on May 21, 2024. (Screenshot from Florida Channel)
“Without a feasibility study, we’re really operating in the dark. We’re just kind of proposing and hoping that this is going to be successful without any concrete data,” Thompson said.
The final report will include a recommendation for the Legislature to fund the study for the top three locations, but Gayle Phillips, a task force member who is the executive director of the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center in St. Augustine, opposed Thompson’s suggestion to hold the rest of the recommendations.
“This technically is saying we’re not submitting anything, which goes back to a lot of what has been happening here in terms of trying to really negate the vote of the task force,” Phillips said, referencing a 5-4 vote to recommend St. Johns that took place on May 21.
Phillips had previously expressed her preference for St. Johns, and it’s no secret that Thompson wants the museum to be in Eatonville, one of the first self-governing, all-Black municipalities in the country.
But that earlier vote also created tensions among the task force members, who accused each other of not being objective in their rankings. Task force member Tony Lee, who works with the State University System of Florida, insisted that he took all the information provided to the group into account.
“I would also clarify, there’s been some misnomers that outside influences beyond this task force had any role in my decision on how I voted and that’s untrue,” Lee said.
Undeveloped site
Community members and other Central Florida lawmakers — among them Democratic Rep. Bruce Antone of Orange County, who sponsored the legislation to make the task force happen but didn’t sit on it — criticized the site that Florida Memorial University would lease to the state for the project because it is undeveloped, lacking transportation access or even sidewalks.
“There were environmental issues with the St. Augustine site, which may require some rezoning, and I feel that the lack of the task force due diligence to consider these factors for the possible future development or lack of the future development for that particular site may need to be stated in the report,” Angela Johnson, a resident of Eatonville, told the panel.
The 11th hour
A sketch of the Florida Normal & Industrial Institute, which is now Florida Memorial University. Photo courtesy of FMU. The Black History Museum Task Force voted to recommend land owned by the university as the museum site.
Johnson criticized that the final meeting didn’t happen until a few days before the deadline to send the report to the governor, state House speaker, and Senate president. The Florida Division of Historical Resources moved the final meeting one week back, from last Friday, with little notice to the public and the task force members.
“You’re at the 11th hour of something that needs to be approved and presented on Monday and you’re wading into a weekend, so I really struggled with the 11th hour, which doesn’t really allow you, in my opinion, sufficient time to review this report, to vet it properly, and to possibly have a little bit more time with making sure that everything is captured properly,” she said.
Representatives from St. Johns insisted that there wouldn’t be any environmental obstacles to building the museum and that the Florida Memorial University president’s recent resignation wouldn’t alter the agreement to lease the land.
“In response to comments about environment, the county, in accordance with public-entity purchasing procedures, did secure a firm to do an environmental analysis of the site. It did come back that there were no contamination findings and no zoning changes are required,” said a representative with the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs of St. Johns County.
Ultimately, the Legislature doesn’t have to listen to the group’s suggestions.
“The task force work is ending with the submission of the report you’re finalizing today, but the work of making the Florida Black history museum a reality is only just beginning,” St. Augustine resident Vicki Pepper said during public comments.
“In order to create and sustain a world-class museum that will be a beacon not only for all Floridians but for the entire nation and even the world, it’s going to take a collaborative effort of all of us across the state working together.”
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