Exhibit explores five centuries of Black history in Tampa Bay

Zoom in: The exhibit starts with Spanish explorers bringing enslaved Black people to Florida and covers how Black communities navigated the Jim Crow era and the Black Lives Matter movement.

• It also features letterman jackets from Tampa's Blake and Middleton high schools, established for Hillsborough County's Black students during segregation.
• "Travails and Triumphs" dives into the story of Zion Cemetery, a Black cemetery that was "intentionally forgotten, and recently remembered."

The big picture: African American history is under intense scrutiny in Florida.

• Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration rejected math instructional materials because of purported references to critical race theory and a high school Advanced Placement course on Black studies.
• The state also approved new, controversial standards for how Black history would be taught in schools, including the suggestion that enslaved people developed skills for personal benefit.
• Florida's volunteer African American History Task Force found only two Tampa Bay school districts meet its "exemplary" criteria, which include ensuring certain content appears in lesson plans over a 180-day period.

What they're saying: "We're at a political moment where this has become a hot potato," Brad Massey, a historian at the Tampa Bay History Center, told Axios. "But I think the stories have always been important."

• "We wanted to tell the very diverse and sophisticated history of the black experience over the last five centuries here in Tampa Bay," Massey said.

What's next: The history center will lead a tour of "the Harlem of the South," Tampa's Central Avenue district, on Aug. 26 and Sept. 30.

• It will also host a discussion in October with residents who lived in Tampa during segregation.