Dec. 15, 2025, 5:08 a.m. ET
- Community members, activists, and a Florida A&M University student have voiced disappointment with the city commission’s decision to approve the sale.
- The author, a Black student, connects the handling of the graves to broader issues of systemic racism and historical disrespect.
The sale of the Capitol City Country Club that includes graves of slaves that are buried on the property is a true tragedy. Like many others, I joined the over 30 community members who attended the Dec. 10 City Commission meeting and provided public comment, expressing my loud and proud opposition to the sale of the property.
Words cannot express my disappointment at the decision of the commission’s majority to ignore the concerns of many members of the public. That included local activistslike Delaitre Hollinger, who has fought for years to protect and honor the cemetery, local experts like Kathleen Powers Conti, who specializes in preserving history and the voices of countless other community members, many of whom live near the country club.
As a third-year student of Florida A&M University, I must also voice my disappointment with the decision of my university’s board of trustees in supporting the sale despite opposition from numerous local leaders and community members.
The National Park Service confirmed the presence of graves on the grounds of the country club in 2019. Work to protect the gravesite only started recently and the commemorative signs placed on the site show they were engraved in 2021, indicating an over four-year delay in their placement.
As a Black person in America, I don’t know the names of many of my ancestors, I can’t visit many of their graves, and seeing the disrespect and the lack of care towards the graves of my people disheartens me. The fact that for years many of Tallahassee’s elite walked, drove and played golf over dozens of black bodies utterly revolts me.
The horrors of racism are not a distant concept; the horrors of Jim Crow and the atrocities of slavery live in the de facto segregation of our neighborhoods, the underfunding of our HBCUs and in the economic inequality that persists to this day.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “Households with a White, non-Hispanic householder had 10 times more wealth than those with a Black householder in 2021.”
Allowing my university’s golf team to play at the club doesn’t negate the years of neglect towards the Black bodies that are buried on the country club’s property or the decades of segregation and discrimination that the club participated in.
As someone who attempts to navigate the complexities of our history, I understand that the identity of our elected officials matters much less to me than their actions. So no, the approval vote by the two Black city commissioners does not in any way lessen my disgust and frustration at the fact that for years the bodies of those enslaved on the plantation who were worked, beaten and abused in life now face such brazen disrespect even in death.
I mention these facts and the history of systemic racism not to divide us, but to get us to correct the wrongs of the past, to move towards a society where the scars of Jim Crow and slavery are not simply acknowledged but one in which solutions for their persistent impacts are found and achieved.
Justin Jordan is a third-year journalism student at Florida A&M University where he is the news editor at The FAMUAN.
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