Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
American Beach, an ocean resort under Jim Crow
1935
American Beach, Florida
Upstateherd · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Black Floridians were kept off the beaches around Jacksonville, so in 1935 Abraham Lincoln Lewis and the Afro-American Life Insurance Company bought two hundred acres of Nassau County oceanfront and opened their own. The pitch was recreation and relaxation without humiliation, and the summers drew Zora Neale Hurston, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Joe Louis and Hank Aaron. Hurricane Dora came through in 1964 and destroyed a great deal of the housing. What survived went on the National Register in 2002.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: approximate area
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