African American Gravesite Found Buried Under Florida Parking Lot

African American graves have been discovered near an old school in Clearwater, Florida.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

According to the Tampa Bay Times, officials used a ground-penetrating radar to identify 44 “grave-like anomalies” from an African American cemetery buried underneath a paved parking lot near an empty school building.

The graves are just 2.45 to 5.62 feet below the surface and once belonged to the historically African American cemetery,  North Greenwood Cemetery.

In the 1950s, the cemetery was moved to make way for a city pool and Palmetto Elementary School and later on Curtis Fundamental, which was relocated. The building hasn’t been used for about 15 years.

It’s believed that about 350 people buried there were moved to Parklawn Memorial Cemetery, but about 44 remain.

City manager Bill Horne said, “We’re all joined together to really focus on doing the right thing. We’re facing a set of circumstances that none of us created, but we do believe that there is an appropriate way for us to support the community in a very sensitive way so that everybody can move forward.”