Zion Cemetery

Zion Cemetery. . , Founded by Richard Doby, a Black entrepreneur and philanthropist, Zion Cemetery was one of the first private cemeteries for Tampa's Black citizens. The cemetery is sacred ground for the African American community, serving as one of the main burying grounds from its founding in 1900 until the early 1920s. Zion Cemetery was among several important cultural resources in the neighborhood, along with the Robles Pond School and three churches, which served African Americans throughout the City of Tampa., As the result of the City of Tampa falsely taxing the property, ownership of the property was taken from the cemetery owners and returned to the original, White, landowners. J.J. Head, Hillsborough County Treasurer, was able to use his position and tax knowledge to initiate this process as early as 1907, though burials continued until 1923., The cemetery was sold in 1926, and the new owners removed gravestones. The area was re-platted with no reference to the original 2.5 acre cemetery plat, a highly unusual change from the normal procedure of referring to the previous plat. , A storefront was erected on Florida Avenue in 1929, and the rest of the cemetery land was used as a poultry farm along with a few home sites. By the late 1930s, Zion Cemetery had been intentionally erased., In November 1951, during the construction of the Robles Park Village Apartments, a government housing project constructed for low-income White citizens, three children's coffins were unearthed. Construction continued following a brief investigation that incorrectly determined they were part of a cemetery that had been completely removed from the site in the 1920s. The cemetery land, at that point, was covered by properties owned by the Housing Authority and two private property owners. By the mid-1960s, most residents of Robles Park Village Apartments were African American., Records show that only a few sets of remains were removed from Zion Cemetery, and ground penetrating radar and archaeological research conducted in 2019 and 2020 show that more than 400 burials remain in the cemetery. In 2021 efforts began to establish a permanent memorial to ensure the preservation of Zion Cemetery. May those interred here finally rest in peace.