A history of black beaches/resorts in the USA during the Jim Crow era

[IllmaticDelta]

Thread was influenced by something @Black Lightning posted

Bruce's Beach

Bruce's Beach was a beach resort in the city of Manhattan Beach (in Los Angeles County, California), that was owned by and operated for African Americans. It provided the African American community with opportunities unavailable at other beach areas because of racial segregation.

Located at 26th Street and Highland Avenue, the property was acquired by the city via eminent domain proceedings in the 1920s and closed down. Some of the area was eventually turned into a city park in the 1960s and renamed Bruce's Beach in 2007.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Highland Beach

Highland Beach is a town in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, United States. The population was 96 at the 2010 census. The town was founded late in the 19th century by affluent African Americans from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, looking for a summer retreat on the Chesapeake Bay. The town's incorporated status gave it a unique standing in empowering it to maintain its own police force. Celebrities with homes there have included historian and author Alex Haley, actor and comedian Bill Cosby, and tennis champion Arthur Ashe. Street names in the town include Crummell, Dunbar, Henson, Augusta, Douglass, Langston, and Washington, which were chosen to honor notable African Americans of the time.

Highland Beach was founded in summer 1893 by Maj. Charles Remond Douglass, (Frederick Douglass' son) and his wife, Laura, after they had been turned away from a restaurant at the nearby Bay Ridge resort because of their race. Charles Douglass was a retired military officer who served with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War. After being turned away, Maj. Douglass decided to buy beachfront property directly south of Bay Ridge and sell lots to family and friends.[5]

Maj. Douglass bought a 40-acre (160,000 m2) tract with 500 feet (150 m) of beachfront on the Chesapeake Bay from Daniel Brashears, a Black farmer and waterman of Anne Arundel County, and turned it into a summer enclave.[5] He had two homes built - one for himself, his wife, and their children, and one as a retirement home for his father, Frederick Douglass, which was known as "Twin Oaks." Frederick Douglass' house, now called the Douglass Summer House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.[6] It became a regular gathering place for upper-class African-Americans. Robert Terrell, the first Black municipal court judge in Washington, DC, and his wife, activist and civic leader, Dr. Mary Church Terrell, built a home, "Villa Aloha," in 1915 on the property they purchased in 1893, which was next door to the Douglass Summer House. Their grandson, Raymond L. Langston, former Highland Beach mayor, owns this home today (2020).

Among the residents and guests of the town were Paul Robeson, Robert Weaver, Harriet Tubman, W. E. B. Du Bois, and poets Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Frederick Douglass visited and would have become a resident but he died in 1895, before the house that his son was building for him was completed.[7]

In the early 1900s, a horse stable, a guest house, a hotel, and tennis courts were all built in the community to accommodate the growing number of residents and their guests. The guest house, which was built by George Bowen in 1902, was a very popular site for lectures, discussions, and informal gatherings. The hotel, which was built by Richard Francis Ware in the 1920s, was a popular spot for Saturday night dances and a meeting place for church groups. It was converted to a private home in the 1970s.

After the death of Charles R. Douglass in 1920, his son, Haley G. Douglass, took over the development of the area. Haley Douglass became a member of the Board of Commissioners for the town of Highland Beach, and incorporated the town on May 12, 1922, making it the first African-American municipality in Maryland. He and his friends controlled the community for the next thirty years, keeping it small and exclusive.[5] He served as Mayor of Highland Beach from the time of its incorporation through his death on January 20, 1954. In 1922, Osborne T. Taylor, a Highland Beach resident, bought 13 acres south of Highland Beach and created Venice Beach, which still exists.

In the June 29, 1950 edition of the Cumberland Evening Times (of Cumberland, Maryland), Census District Supervisor Everard Briscoe mentioned that Highland Beach had 45 homes and five year-round residents, with all of the 45 homes being occupied during vacation season. In the September 18, 1968 edition of The Evening Sun (of Baltimore, Maryland), Highland Beach is described as a "44-acre retreat of 52 clapboard, shingle, and stucco cottages that date back to 1894 - plus 1,000 feet of waterfront where no pets or picnicking are allowed." A Dr. E. B. Henderson, 85 years old at that time, is named as the only surviving member of the 1922 incorporating committee. He is mentioned as the former head of Physical Education in DC Public Schools, with about 40 years of service there. According to Dr. Henderson, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote "Ships that Pass in the Night," one of his most famous poems, while visiting Highland Beach. Mrs. Fannie Howard Douglass, widow of Joseph H. Douglass (grandson of Frederick Douglass), was in her 80s and living in the Twin Oaks home at the time of this article. Joseph and Fannie's son, Frederick Douglass, III, married Nettie Hancock Washington, the granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, joining two of the most esteemed Black families of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is the oldest of all the Black resort towns in America. Founded by Charles and Laura Douglass in 1893, Charles was the son of the well renowned Frederick Douglass.

This beach is located approximately 35 miles outside of Washington D.C. and was the very first black owned resort in the history of America. This destination was birthed from an act of racial discrimination when the Douglass’s were denied entry into a restaurant on Chesapeake Bay. Charles Douglass then decided to delve into the real estate industry and began purchasing beachfront property and selling lots to his friends and family. Some of its earliest purchasers were notable African American politicians in the DC/Baltimore area including Senators, Congressman and Judge Robert Terrell and his wife, Mary. Terrell was the first black judge in the District of Columbia.

Charles Douglass, the youngest son of abolitionist and activist Frederick Douglass
When Charles Douglass died in 1920 its ownership was transferred to his son Haley Douglass who in 1922 led a movement to make Highland Beach the first African American incorporated municipality in the state’s history.

Today there are approximately 90 homes still owned and occupied by descendants of the original settlers of Highland Beach and the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center ‘Twin Oaks’ is a local attraction at this distinctive resort destination.

Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois and singer Poel Robinson all made Highland Beach their summer home.

19th century Photo of Highland Beach Residents

 

[IllmaticDelta]

CARR AND SPARROW’S BEACH

Carr’s Beach, at one time one of the leading beaches for east coast African Americans, was affectionately called, “The Beach.” Although “The Beach” no longer exists as a vacation getaway spot, Carr’s Beach and its neighboring Sparrow’s Beach were two of the major Chesapeake Bay resorts that catered exclusively to African Americans between the 1930s and the 1960s. Owned by sisters, Elizabeth Carr Smith and Florence Carr Sparrow, the beaches were a vacation retreat for black families in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The origins of Carr’s Beach can be traced back to 1902 when Frederick and Mary Wells Carr purchased 180 acres of farmland on the Annapolis Neck Peninsula. While the family farmed the land as early as 1909, the Carr family hosted picnics and church outings and took in boarders. In 1926, two years before Frederick Carr’s death, the family founded Carr’s Beach.

In 1931, Florence Carr Sparrow, one of the daughters who inherited the family’s land, created Sparrow’s Beach just north of Carr’s Beach, and the two resorts operated side by side but as separate businesses. Carr’s and Sparrow Beaches attracted thousands of visitors from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York; Baltimore, Maryland; Wilmington, Delaware; Pittsburgh; and Washington, D.C. who frequented the beach for swimming. During the week, the Beach hosted summer day camps, church picnics, and other family and community-centered events. By three o’clock, however, many visitors made their way to Carr’s Beach Pavilion to dance to the latest hit songs by locally or regionally popular entertainers.

Following the death of Elizabeth Carr in 1948, Carr’s Beach came under the control of William L. “Little Willie” Adams, a businessman/numbers operator who formed Carr’s Beach Amusement Company and infused badly needed capital into the resort’s operations. With his resources, Adams expanded both the entertainment and recreation opportunities for old and young alike. He insured that by the 1950s Carr’s Beach was one of the major stops for major African American artists and musicians on the Chitlin’ Circuit, a group of venues throughout the East and South which catered to black audiences. Among the ntertainers who performed on weekends during the summer months were jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and Lionel Hampton, as well as soul artists Ray Charles, James Brown, and Jackie Wilson. Rock ‘n’ Roll pioneers Fats Domino and Buddy Holly also performed at Carr’s Beach. On July 21, 1956, an estimated 70,000 people traveled to Carr’s Beach to hear Chuck Berry perform, although only 8,000 made it past the gates because the grounds were filled beyond capacity. By the early 1960s, the list of popular entertainers included Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, the Shirelles, the Coasters, and the Drifters.

In addition to the annual rival dance contests held between African American beachgoers from Washington, D.C. and Annapolis, local residents recalled that whites also visited the beaches, making them two of the first venues in Maryland which developed a sizeable interracial clientele. Because of the crowds, the beaches organized their own special police force. As a safe and welcoming vacation destination, Carr-Sparrow Beach attracted the attention of people from diverse racial backgrounds who enjoyed good black music. Carr’s Beach was often the last stop for the entertainers who played the Howard Theatre in D.C. and/or the Baltimore Royal Theatre before they headed Down South to perform.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

American Beach, Florida

American Beach is a historic beach community in northeastern Florida popular with African-American vacationers. It is located north of Jacksonville on Amelia Island in Nassau County. During the time of segregation and the Jim Crow era, African Americans were not allowed to swim at most beaches in Jacksonville, and several black-only areas were created. American Beach was the largest and most popular, and was a community established by Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida's first black millionaire and president of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company.[3] It contains American Beach Historic District, a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

American Beach was founded in 1935 by Florida's first black millionaire, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, and his Afro-American Life Insurance Company.[4] The plan was for his employees to have a place to vacation and own homes for their families by the shore.[3] Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, summers at American Beach were busy with families, churches and children. It was a place where African Americans could enjoy "Recreation and Relaxation Without Humiliation". The beach included hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs as well as homes and other businesses.[5]

American Beach played host to numerous celebrities during this period, including: folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, singer Billie Daniels, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Billy Eckstein, Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, actor Ossie Davis, and Sherman Hemsley . James Brown was actually turned away from performing outside Evans' Rendezvous, a nightclub on the beach. In 1964, American Beach was hit hard by Hurricane Dora, and many homes and buildings were destroyed. The passage of the Civil Rights Act that same year desegregated the beaches of Florida, and American Beach became a less and less popular vacation destination as more African American Jacksonvillians turned to locations nearer their homes.[6]

A.L. Lewis' great-granddaughter MaVynee Betsch, known to locals as the Beach Lady, returned to American Beach in 1977 to fight for its preservation. For years, she planted trees along Lewis street, offered historical tours of the beach, and fought to raise public awareness of the beach and its struggle until her death September 2005. She wanted to make American Beach a monument to black Americans' determination to overcome the obstacles of the Jim Crow era. As of January 2001, American Beach is listed as a historic site by the National Register of Historic Places.

 

[bnew]

The coasts of today's American South feature luxury condominiums, resorts, and gated communities, yet just a century ago, a surprising amount of beachfront property in the Chesapeake, along the Carolina shores, and around the Gulf of Mexico was owned and populated by African Americans. Blending social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl tells the story of African American–owned beaches in the twentieth century. By reconstructing African American life along the coast, Kahrl demonstrates just how important these properties were for African American communities and leisure, as well as for economic empowerment, especially during the era of the Jim Crow South. However, in the wake of the civil rights movement and amid the growing prosperity of the Sunbelt, many African Americans fell victim to effective campaigns to dispossess black landowners of their properties and beaches.


Black beaches that broke barriers: African American owned vacation spots that made history​

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Oak Bluffs

People of African descent first arrived at Martha's Vineyard in the 1600s as enslaved West Africans who worked on the farms of European settlers. The Oak Bluffs harbor drew freed slaves, laborers and sailors in the 18th century, and white locals sold them land.[5] After slavery was abolished, the freed blacks came to work in the fishing industries, in turn drawing black residents from the Massachusetts mainland, who came and started businesses to serve the Vineyard's growing population.[6] In the 1800s some black laborers also worked as servants to wealthy white families and in the hotels.[7] In the late 19th and 20th centuries, middle-class blacks bought or rented summer homes, and many of their descendants returned annually.[5] Formerly enslaved people, or their descendants, bought property around Baptist Temple Park in the early 20th century, drawn by the religious services held there. Teachers, politicians, lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs resided there for decades afterward.[8]

Affluent African Americans from New York, Boston, and Washington came to Oak Bluffs, the only Martha's Vineyard town that welcomed black tourists as other towns on the island did not allow black guests to stay in inns and hotels until the 1960s.[6][7] Many bought houses in an area they called the Oval or the Highlands, which Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West wrote about in her 1995 novel, The Wedding (edited by Doubleday editor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a Vineyard resident who visited West for two summers).[5][7] By the 1930s, local black landowners were transforming the town into the country's best-known and most exclusive African American vacation spot.[6] Down the road from West, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. owned a cottage in the Oval where Artic explorer Matthew Henson was a guest.[7] Further down the road is Shearer Cottage, the first inn for African Americans vacationers. It was built by a Charles Shearer, the son of a slave and a slave owner, when Shearer saw that black visitors were not able to stay at the homes due to segregation. Guests at the inn included the first self-made American millionairess Madame CJ Walker, singers Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters and Lillian Evanti; and composer Harry T. Burleigh.[7][9]

 

[Samori Toure]

Marked for later.