{"id":60914,"date":"2021-06-14T02:32:28","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T02:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60914"},"modified":"2021-06-14T02:34:13","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T02:34:13","slug":"naacp-to-tampa-for-juneteenth-find-robert-meacham-a-slave-who-became-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60914","title":{"rendered":"NAACP to Tampa: For Juneteenth, find Robert Meacham, a slave who became senator"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAACP to Tampa: For Juneteenth, find Robert Meacham, a slave who became senator<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Times<\/a>
\n2021-06-12<\/p>\n

Paul Guzzo<\/strong><\/a>, Tampa Bay LIfe Reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nThis portrait of Robert Meacham<\/a> was taken around 1870. Meacham was an enslaved man who was later elected Florida<\/a> senator. [Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory]<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

He was buried in the erased College Hill Cemetery<\/a> believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery\u2019s<\/a> parking lot.<\/em><\/p>\n

TAMPA<\/a> \u2014 Robert Meacham<\/a> was an enslaved man who became a Florida<\/a> state senator pushing for educational opportunities for Black children.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert Meacham is the type of man who deserves a street named for him,\u201d said Fred Hearns<\/a>, the curator of Black history at the Tampa Bay History Center<\/a>. \u201cMaybe even a statue.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he doesn\u2019t even have a marked grave.<\/p>\n

Meacham is among the more than 1,200 buried in Tampa\u2019s erased College Hill Cemetery for Blacks and Cubans, believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n

June 19 is Juneteenth<\/a>, the day commemorating the anniversary of when in 1865 the enslaved in Texas<\/a> were freed. It serves as the day to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States<\/a>…<\/p>\n

…Meacham was born in Gadsden County<\/a> in 1835. His mother was an enslaved woman. His father was her white owner.<\/p>\n

As a child, Meacham rode alongside his father in the family buggy<\/a> and was educated. But, when he turned 18, Meacham was taken to Tallahassee<\/a> to \u201cfulfill the role of a house-servant for an affluent Leon County<\/a> family.\u201d When his father died, Meacham became that family\u2019s \u201cproperty.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was buried in the erased College Hill Cemetery believed to be located in what is now the Italian Club Cemetery\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,6940,20],"tags":[31500,31502,3707,31497,31498,31499,899,2708,31496,31495,31503,18366,31501],"class_list":["post-60914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-canter-brown-jr","tag-christina-meacham","tag-florida","tag-fred-hearns","tag-janelle-mcgregor","tag-mark-stanish","tag-naacp","tag-national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people","tag-paul-guzzo","tag-robert-meacham","tag-stella-meacham","tag-tampa","tag-yvette-lewis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60914"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60918,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60914\/revisions\/60918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}