'Solemn feeling': Officials to expand search after lost Black cemetery identified at Air Force base in Florida
ABC News
Officials found 121 likely graves belonging to the lost Port Tampa Cemetery inside the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
Officials at MacDill Air Force Base confirmed the location of the lost Port Tampa Cemetery, a burial site where many Black families were buried during segregation, after an archeological survey identified 121 possible graves at the base in Tampa, Florida.
Research and surveys of the area for more possible graves will continue through 2024, base officials told ABC News.
"It's a solemn feeling to know that one of Tampa's lost cemeteries is located here where we live and work," 2nd Lt. Laura M. Anderson, a public affairs officer at the United States Air Force MacDill Base, told ABC News on Friday.
She added, "But with that also comes a sense of closure, rediscovering Port Tampa Cemetery means we can now pay our respects to those who have been laid to rest here and know that they are no longer a forgotten part of history."
In 2019, researchers at the Tampa Bay History Center reached out to the MacDill Air Force Base to alert them of the possibility that the cemetery was located inside the base after they found records dating back to 1939 that gave a rough description of where the Port Tampa Cemetery was located.
