Slavery memorial bill advances easily in House committee

Legislation creating a slavery memorial on the grounds of Florida’s Capitol easily advanced in a House committee Tuesday.

The monument would “honor the nameless and forgotten men and women and children who have gone unrecognized, for their weighty contributions to our great states and United States,” Miami-Dade Democratic Rep. Kionne McGhee told the House Government Accountability Committee.

McGhee is the bill’s sponsor in the House.

Officially, HB 67 calls for the Department of Management Services, upon recommendation of the Florida Historical Commission, to create and establish a slavery memorial on Capitol property.

Sponsoring the Senate version (SB 286) is St. Petersburg Democrat Darryl Rouson, which also swept easily through committee Tuesday without dissent.

The bill was on a path to become a law during the 2017 Legislative Session but was held up by Ocala Republican Sen. Dennis Baxley.

Baxley told the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald last month that his intention is to hear the bill this coming session: “It was never my intention to stop the bill; I didn’t think it was ready.”

The current House bill has two Republican co-sponsors, Blaise Ingoglia of Hernando County and Pasco County’s Danny Burgess.

Other memorials in and around the Capitol complex honor veterans, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and women; still another recognizes the Holocaust.