Picture this: manicured greens stretching beneath towering live oak trees, golfers perfecting their swings, and just feet below the seventh hole, the unmarked graves of enslaved people who toiled on that very land generations ago. It’s a jarring contrast that has turned one Florida golf course into the center of a heated debate about history, money, and who decides what happens to sacred ground.
Less than a mile from Florida’s state Capitol building, the Capital City Country Club sits on land that carries a dark legacy. What’s happening there now has ignited fierce pushback from residents who say the city is choosing profit over respect for the dead.
The Vote That Divided a City
The Tallahassee City Commission voted 3 to 2 on Wednesday to sell the publicly owned 178-acre golf course to the politically connected country club for $1.255 million. Mayor John Dailey, Commissioners Williams-Cox and Richardson voted for the sale. Commissioners Matlow and Porter voted against. The decision came after a tense meeting where over two dozen residents voiced their opposition.
Let’s be real, this wasn’t just about a real estate transaction. The deal has reopened painful wounds from Tallahassee’s segregated past and reignited concerns from local activists, who questioned the city’s yearslong delay in building a commemorative site to preserve and protect the unmarked graves, more than four years after the commission voted to do so.
What Lies Beneath the Greens
Archaeologists with the National Park Service identified what they believe to be 23 unmarked graves and 14 possible graves near the 7th hole of the golf course back in 2019. The evidence of Florida’s slave-holding past lies just beneath the surface, in the form of the long-lost burial grounds of enslaved people who lived and died on the plantation that once sprawled with cotton there…