Episode Summaries

The 4-Part docuseries will explore four themes of the lost, erased and destroyed Black cemeteries found throughout the Tampa Bay area and around the United States.

  1. How it started

In 2018, Ray Reed, the retired head of Hillsborough County’s indigent healthcare system, reached out to the Tampa Bay Times with an intriguing claim – he was regularly visited by a nearby indigent cemetery’s ghosts who pestered him to bring them dignity in death. The Times wrote about it. Reed then made a more explosive claim – he believed Black cemeteries throughout the area had been built over without the bodies being removed. That inspired a Times investigation that discovered Zion Cemetery and its nearly 1,000 graves under federal housing projects. And that article set off a flurry of investigations that discovered the next 10 cemeteries.

2. How it happened

Following the Civil War, freed enslaved men and women founded their own communities outside the Tampa Bay area’s city’s limits. Each community had a school, church and cemetery. But, as the cities’ populations grew, the boundaries expanded and used questionable but legal devices to take the land from the Black communities. And, as the cemeteries stood in the way of development, it was deemed cheaper to remove the headstones and build over the graves rather than moving the bodies. The Black communities were likely then silenced through intimidation in an era when the KKK still marched in the area and Black men were lynched.

3. The people of the cemeteries

Following the Civil War, freed enslaved men and women founded their own communities outside the Tampa Bay area’s city’s limits. Each community had a school, church and cemetery. But, as the cities’ populations grew, the boundaries expanded and used questionable but legal devices to take the land from the Black communities. And, as the cemeteries stood in the way of development, it was deemed cheaper to remove the headstones and build over the graves rather than moving the bodies. The Black communities were likely then silenced through intimidation in an era when the KKK still marched in the area and Black men were lynched.

4. What next

Most of those who own the cemeteries did not know they were purchasing land with erased graves of pioneering Black residents. Now, the cities, counties and the state must wrestle with how to make these property owners financially whole – some have lost millions of dollars in - while also being respectful of the deceased.

Why Four 45-Minute Episodes?

Series Synopsis:
UnRested pulls viewers into a powerful, time-jumping investigation uncovering one of America’s buried injustices—literally. At its heart are 11 erased Black cemeteries in Tampa Bay, unearthed through the relentless reporting of journalist Paul Guzzo. But this story is far from local.

Each episode exposes a broader national pattern: graves paved over, records “lost,” legacies erased. We follow the evidence beyond Florida—from a Microsoft data center built on top of a forgotten Black cemetery in Virginia, to neighborhoods, schools, and shopping centers quietly resting on sacred ground across the country.

The series weaves together telecast archives, raw interviews, and dynamic motion graphics. No narration—just the voices of those who lived it, discovered it, or were impacted by it. In the spirit of 30 for 30: June 17th, 1994, UnRested doesn’t tell you how to feel. It shows you the truth in real time, in all its uncomfortable clarity.

This is not a history lesson. It’s a reckoning.