With Florida’s Museum of Black History soon taking shape in St. Johns County, state lawmakers are requiring an Administrative Board to be established, according to the bill authorizing the facility’s construction.
Sen. Tom Leek of Ormond Beach introduced Senate Bill 308, which would create an Administrative Board that must be formed by July 31, 2026. The panel will oversee the museum’s construction, operation, and administration — a key step in fulfilling the vision outlined in legislation authorizing the museum’s development. Leek had filed a similar bill last year. It cleared every committee unanimously. It cleared the House and Senate unanimously, along $750,000 for actual construction. Gov. DeSantis vetoed the funding, and Leek’s bill died.
DeSantis’s veto was part of a series of targeted attacks on Black history, minority scholarships and a mentorship program for Black students. DeSantis in 2023 purged an Advanced Placement Black Studies course from Florida schools, and directed the Department of Education to revamp Black studies standards.
He’s trying again. The Board will oversee the commission, construction, operation and administration of the museum, a press release from Leek’s office notes. Leek’s district includes all of Flagler County.
“I firmly believe that we cannot tell the history of Florida without also telling the history of Black Floridians, which is why I am proud to file Senate Bill 308 in support of Florida’s Museum of Black History,” Leek said. “The museum will be built on the former site of Florida Memorial University, which has historical significance here in St. Johns County, and I look forward to working with our community and our state in furtherance of this significant designation.”
As in the previous proposal, the Governor, the Senate President, and the House Speaker would appoint three members of the Board, which would also have two Senators and two Representatives. None of the nine members picked by leadership could hold elected office while serving.
The new Board will also work alongside the Foundation for the Museum of Black History to manage funding, programming, and long-term planning — a partnership intended to guarantee both transparency and sustainability for the institution.
Leek’s previous bill had mandated the St. Johns County Commission to provide administrative assistance and staffing. The new bill does so as well, but again lacks funding for S. Johns County’s administration.
A museum task force, also created at the legislature’s direction, conducted 10 public meetings around the state before issuing recommendations on the location of the proposed museum on June 28, 2024. St. Johns/St. Augustine ranked first, followed by Eatonville/Orange County, and Opa-locka.
Then-House Speaker Paul Renner had appointed Flagler County’s Howard Holley, the marketing consultant, publisher and chair of the Daytona State College Foundation Board, among other distinctions, as one of the nine members of the task force, an appointment largely instrumental in pushing the location toward St. Johns.
“Supplemental materials included in the Final Report produced by the task force highlighted the extensive historical heritage of St. Johns County, including the Historic Downtown of St.
Augustine,” a legislative analysis of Leek’s 2024 bill stated. “St. Johns County hosts over 10 million visitors and tourists annually seeking to visit numerous historic sites such as Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned, free African American settlement in the nation.”
St. Johns partnered with Florida Memorial University (FMU), a historically Black university, and the County Commission in April 2024 approved a negotiated agreement to develop the museum property on a 14-5-acre site there, 2.5 miles from the center of Historic Downtown St. Augustine. Before it became FMU, it had been the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute, established in 1918 in a merger with another institution to serve former enslaved persons and their descendants. The museum’s foundation was established in October 2024.
–FlaglerLive and Florida Politics
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