Communities big and small vying to be home of Florida Museum of Black History

The campus of the segregated-era Havana Northside High School could become the home of Florida's first state-funded Black history museum.

A proposal to use five acres of the campus of the school, 20 miles west of Tallahassee, was among nine accepted during a December meeting of the state task force created to create a Florida Museum of Black History.

The project is a creation of a bill (HB 1441) signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May after the Department of Education released new history standards that teach some enslaved people learned valuable skills while held in captivity.

The measure created a nine-member task force — appointed by DeSantis, House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, all white and Republicans — to recommend how the museum would be set up and what its mission will be.