That’s why last week, on the second to last day for bills to be filed for the legislative session, Antone filed House Bill 1413. It proposes a broader focused museum in Orange County, which pledged $75 million over five years for the project and set aside 10 acres in Eatonville on the land where the Robert F. Hungerford Normal and Industrial School for Black students once stood. Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith sponsored the companion bill in the Senate. 

VoxPopuli caught up with Antone over the weekend to talk with him about what he is now calling the Florida Museum of History at the Town of Eatonville.

VoxPopuli: Representative, when I read through your bill, I noticed that as you broadened the museum’s mission, this is no longer a Black history museum. 

Rep. Bruce Antone: [chuckling] Right … right. I would tell you, when I talked to the Washington Post reporter, when I talked to Politico, when I talked to Nick Papantonis from Channel 9, they’re like Man, are you white-washing the Black history museum? And I say no. I look at it this way: I would rather get 70 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing. So if I got to give up some space in this museum to broaden the appeal to make it the Florida Museum of History so it doesn’t have that DEI label [diversity, equity and inclusion], if that’s what it takes to get it across the finish line, then that’s what I have to do. 

VoxPopuli: Isn’t there already a museum of Florida history? 

Antone: There's a Florida Museum of History in the Florida Department of State building in Tallahassee. It's been closed about two years because it was leaking. Most likely it will not open until after July 2026. Tallahassee only has about 50,000 people that go to that museum. I did not know that museum existed until I tried to pass legislation.

If we really want folks to learn about the history of Florida, then let's put it in Orlando where we have 73 million tourists coming, where 12 million of those tourists do something cultural — a museum, play, concert. 

I've named mine the Florida Museum of History, partially to separate myself from Opa-Locka and St. Johns, but at the same time being concerned about the diversity, equity and inclusion, anti-woke stuff — would that hurt my legislation?

VoxPopuli: Let’s talk about how the museum content has changed in your new bill. 

Antone:  I would devote a third of this museum, the Florida Museum of History at the town of Eatonville, to the State of Florida's history and storytelling. The impact of tourism on Florida.  We had NASA come here. During the Apollo space program, there would be half a million folks standing on the beaches to watch the Apollo rocket go up. The impact on  of NASA and space exploration on Florida has been tremendous.

There's the impact of the military on Florida.  Then the impact of agriculture. Folks don't understand how big a deal agriculture is in the state of Florida and the United States. The Florida citrus industry is about 40 percent, I think, of the total citrus industry in the United States. Let's tell the story of the history of Florida and tell that story in Orlando where you've got lots more tourists. 

 The other two thirds of this museum would be devoted to Black history from when Blacks came to the State of Florida and to the United States to today and all the progress that's been made in between. There’s Black astronauts, Blacks in the military, Blacks in aviation, Black entrepreneurship. That can all be told in a museum that is the Florida Museum of History.‍

VoxPopuli: The museum creates space for Florida’s other Black, Hispanic and Holocaust museums. What’s the rationale there?

Antone: I'm trying to cast a wide net. I figured if I can pull everybody in, maybe that helps me get the votes I need. And so you give each one of those small museums some space to market their museum. And then for the tourists that come to Orlando, maybe they're going to Jacksonville, maybe they're going to Miami, maybe they're going to Fort Lauderdale, and they say, Oh, here's a Holocaust museum down there that I want to go see. Oh, there's a Black museum down there that I want to go see. That’s the thought behind why I've included that.‍

VoxPopuli: The task force chose St. Augustine in St. Johns County. How are you going to get them to change their mind?

Antone: Part of the recommendation from the task force is that there was supposed to be a feasibility study to look at all three locations. None of that is in the St. Johns bill. They've just decided We were number one and we're going to march forward. They were supposed to do an environmental impact study on that property up there. They've not done that. They cannot even tell you what the content of their museum will be. Other than old slavery, da, da, da, da.  Black history is far richer  and broader than slavery.

I just got to go back and push hard. If you don't ask, you don't get. And I'm just going to try to make the case that the Orlando museum in Eatonville can be an education tool for school kids because we got half a million school kids here that we can let go for free.

But it also can be an economic driver. It can be a tourism driver. You get folks to stay an extra night, they'll spend $100+ on a hotel room. They'll spend money on food, drink, shopping, rental car, Uber. This thing can potentially create 100 full-time jobs, can probably get at least a half a million visitors every year that can pay $10 or $15 [admission] so it can be self sustaining. St. Johns, I don't know how it becomes self sustaining. I don't know how Opa-Locka becomes self sustaining. 

But this [museum] is basically being built on top of the number one tourist destination in the United States and the number two or three convention destination in the United States. And a lot of times when these conventions come here, they plan for entertainment and they contract with bus companies and they bus folks out there. I can see that they would do that in Orlando if we build this world class museum. If we use the right people — historians, curators — to design the content of the museum I think this thing will work.

VoxPopuli: With the efforts at the state and federal level to strip away anything that mentions race or diversity, even as you’ve broadened the appeal of the museum, does your legislation have a chance of passage? 

Antone:  I think it improved my chances greatly. I think the Senate President, the House Speaker and other leadership in both houses, whether they be Democrat or Republican, they know how passionate I am about this, and they know I'm really serious about this thing. In terms of can I get it passed, it all comes down to how well I market it, how well I appeal to the leadership.