A Florida NAACP branch is looking for more than just a symbolic gesture this Juneteenth. Leaders want a commitment from the city of Tampa to investigate hundreds of lost graves, including one of Florida’s first Black politicians. Robert Meacham was born to an enslaved Black woman and her white enslaver in 1835. He himself would be taken into slavery as a house servant at the age of 18. It is believed he bought himself out of slavery with gratuities from his enslaver. Once free, he helped found an African Methodist Church and school for Black children. He died at the age of 66 and is said to be buried in an unmarked grave in Tampa’s College Hill Cemetery. Since then, the cemetery was erased and redeveloped. Yvette Lewis, president of the NAACP’s Hillsborough County branch, joins “Prime with Charles Blow” to discuss the topic.
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