Beaches, Benches and Boycotts: The Civil Rights Movement in Tampa Bay

December 1960, people picket in front of local St. Petersburg businesses, in a movement sponsored by the NAACP. Tampa Bay Times.
December 1960, people picket in front of local St. Petersburg businesses, in a movement sponsored by the NAACP. Tampa Bay Times.

An original exhibition of The Florida Holocaust Museum

The focus of most Civil Rights history is written about places like Alabama and Mississippi, as if few challenges occurred elsewhere. Tampa Bay remained racially segregated at the dawn of the Civil Rights era and many local institutions and establishments held out on integration for several years after Brown v. the Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Under “Jim Crow” every aspect of African American life in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and their surrounding cities was segregated.  Restricted covenants were in place that segregated residential neighborhoods. African American children had to attend segregated schools that were under-funded and often in disrepair.  Blacks could only be cared for at “Black only” hospitals, and other public and private establishments like restaurants and beaches were often segregated – if blacks were allowed in at all.

The Civil Rights Movement in Tampa Bay may have had characteristics similar to other areas of the South but its stories are its own. This exhibition will illuminate our region’s struggle with racial equality and shine a light on the local leaders who changed our cities.

The exhibition is on display at The Florida Holocaust Museum through March 15, 2020.

 

To read more about this history of Tampa Bay’s African American Communities:

St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream 1888-1950 by Raymond Arsenault

Newtown Alive: Courage, Dignity, Determination by Rosalyn Howard, Ph.D. and Vickie Oldham, M.F.A.

African Americans of Tampa by Ersula Knox Odum

St. Petersburg’s Historic 22nd Street South by Rosalie Peck and John Wilson

St. Petersburg’s Historic African American Neighborhoods by Rosalie Peck and John Wilson

Black America Series St. Petersburg, Florida by Sandra W. Rooks