Original post by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
Sen. Tom Leek, a North Florida Republican, filed a bill Monday to officially name St. Johns County as the site for Florida’s Black History Museum.
Phillips had previously expressed her preference for St. Johns, and it’s no secret that Thompson wants the museum to be in Eatonville, one of the first self-governing, all-Black municipalities in the country.
But that earlier vote also created tensions among the task force members, who accused each other of not being objective in their rankings. Task force member Tony Lee, who works with the State University System of Florida, insisted that he took all the information provided to the group into account.
Leek’s filing of SB 466 comes more than six months after a panel tasked with making recommendations for the museum’s construction issued its final report to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the leaders of the Republican-led Legislature
“There were environmental issues with the St. Augustine site, which may require some rezoning, and I feel that the lack of the task force due diligence to consider these factors for the possible future development or lack of the future development for that particular site may need to be stated in the report,” Angela Johnson, a resident of Eatonville, told the panel.
A sketch of the Florida Normal & Industrial Institute, which is now Florida Memorial University. Photo courtesy of FMU. The Black History Museum Task Force voted to recommend land owned by the university as the museum site.
