About the AACATB /
The African American Cemetery Alliance Tampa Bay was developed in 2020 in response to the rediscovery of erased African American cemeteries in the Tampa Bay area. African American cemeteries serve as a cornerstone of community identity, dignity, and history. The AACATB is a collaborative organization that fosters communication, shares resources, and unites voices in an effort to recenter marginalized cemeteries through preservation, education, and activism. Members of the alliance bring together diverse funds of knowledge and perspectives from anthropologists, archaeologists, museums, educators, policymakers, community leaders and activists.
Founding Members /
Tina Bucuvalas, Ph.D.
Tina Bucuvalas is Director of Florida Cultural Resources, Inc. and President of Greektown Preservation and Heritage Association. Previously she served as State Folklorist & Director/Florida Folklife Program/Bureau of Historic Preservation, Curator of Folklife/Historical Museum of Southern Florida, and Curator of Arts & Historical Resources/City of Tarpon Springs. She authored, co-authored, or edited Greek Music in America (2019), Greeks in Tarpon Springs (2016), The Florida Folklife Reader (2011), Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art (2004), and South Florida Folklife (1994). She also works with historic preservation, has curated numerous exhibits, and published many essays. Bucuvalas documented and successfully nominated Tarpon Springs’ Greektown Historic District, Rose Hill Cemetery, and Cycadia Cemetery to the National Register of Historic Places, and worked on the NR nomination of Eatonville, FL on behalf of the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation. She conducted research on public folklore as a Fulbright Scholar in Greece and received a PhD in Folklore from Indiana University.
https://floridaculturalresources.org/
Rodney Kite-Powell, Ph.D.
Rodney Kite-Powell is the Director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center, where he joined the staff in 1995. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida and a Master of Arts from the University of South Florida – both in the subject of US history. Born and raised in Tampa, he has written and lectured extensively on the history of Tampa, Hillsborough County, and Florida. Rodney is an officer with the Philip Lee Phillips Society of the Library of Congress where he serves on the Academic Committee, and in 2019 he was named the official county historian for Hillsborough County by the Board of County Commissioners.
Shannon Peck-Bartle, Ph.D.
Shannon Peck-Bartle is a 17 year veteran educator researching at the intersection of education and anthropology. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, a M.A. in Applied Anthropology from the University of South Florida, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction Design from the University of South Florida. Peck-Bartle is the director of the Rose Hill Cemetery Place-Based Education Program, a place-based learning program that provides free curricular resources for educators interested in fusing African American and Afro-Caribbean narratives into the classroom. Currently, she serves on the Historic Response Committee for the Ridgewood Cemetery and the African American History Task Force for the Hillsborough County School District. She researches and publishes extensively on issues associated with race, cultural landscapes, and secondary social studies education.
Muhammad Abdur-Rahim, Clearwater community activist
Zeb Atkinson, President- NAACP Clearwater/ Upper Pinellas, Clearwater Heights Cemetery, community cemetery activist
Lou Claudio, Whispering Souls Cemetery, community cemetery activist
Lisa Grizzle, Manager of Parks and Rec, City of Tampa
Jacqueline Hayes, Whispering Souls Cemetery, community cemetery activist
Antoinette Jackson, Ph.D. University of South Florida Department of Anthropology, Black Cemetery Network
Erin Kimmerle, Ph.D. University of South Florida Department of Anthropology
Erin McKendry, Cardno Archaeology
Jeff Moates, Florida Public Archaeology Network
Eric Prendergast, Cardno Archaeology
Barbara Sorey-Love, Clearwater African American Cemeteries Memorial Committee, community cemetery activist