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America's history of racial segregation has played a critical role in shaping both what is publicly acknowledged, remembered, and preserved with respect to heritage and what is forgotten, whispered about, or relegated to the status of other in many communities. In this paper, I discuss how the community of Sulphur Springs in Tampa, FL, in partnership with students and faculty from the University of South Florida, has begun to address issues of identity and representation in the marketing of heritage as a key cultural resource. Issues confronted by this community underscore the role that heritage research, preservation, and management plays in defining the present and creating the future. Lessons learned from a previously conducted study of the Kingsley Plantation community in Jacksonville, FL, inform this analysis.

Intensive media focus on New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the massive displacement of nearly half a million people brought national attention to large scale disparities in housing, environmental protections, access to services, education, and healthcare for a vast number of residents. These disparities, racialized and socio‐economically embedded, were a reality for many long before Katrina and in places in New Orleans unfamiliar to many. For the most part however, they have remained invisible to those not directly affected. This analysis makes visible stories, critiques, and visions for the future shared primarily by African American residents and former residents of New Orleans, Louisiana. [New Orleans, disaster management, race, place, heritage]

In this article, I profile and analyze how the community of Sulphur Springs in Tampa, Florida, in partnership with students and faculty from the University of South Florida, has begun to address issues of diversity and representation in the marketing of heritage as a key cultural resource from a business, social, and educational perspective. This grassroots project is based on the idea of bringing people together by focusing on preserving and promoting heritage for the education and empowerment of all community residents and visitors.

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