Preserving Black Historical Resorts Is a Radical Act
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Images from Michigan鈥檚 historic Idlewild resort are striking for their depictions of Black people vacationing and having a good time during a period in history where sociopolitical conditions made it nearly impossible.
Families playfully make sandcastles together; young boys dive off wooden piers into the lake; couples sit outside of quaint wooden cabins; beauty聽pageant contestants strut down a grassy runway; vacationers horseback ride and boat鈥攁ll seemingly recreation, without a care in the world.聽
Amid the violent segregation of the Jim Crow era, leaning into Black joy, leisure, and recreation was a form of quiet radical resistance. Today that resistance is ongoing through retaining the memory and actual historical sites that held space for it as we continue to reckon with anti-Blackness in the United States.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like Rosa Parks sitting on that bus. It鈥檚 like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. You know, those folks, what they did, was … equivalent to all that. It鈥檚 a part of that struggle,鈥� says Joe McGill, founder and executive director of the Slave Dwelling Project, a nonprofit that reframes the narrative of American slavery and centers the spaces where enslaved Africans lived. 鈥淭hey wanted to be able to recreate, to have places for recreation. It was radical.鈥�
Idlewild, known as Michigan鈥檚 鈥淏lack Eden,鈥� is just one of many African American leisure spaces that flourished from the early 1900s to the civil rights era鈥攁nd which now need intentional investment and coordinated action around historical preservation to continue existing.
Black Edens Across the U.S.
, but Black entrepreneurs and property owners built the 2-square-mile town into a thriving community of businesses, residences, and entertainment venues like the .
The resort attracted Black professionals, like prominent cardiologist , and Black elites like W.E.B. DuBois, Madam C.J. Walker, and Louis and Lucille Armstrong.
Purdue Professor of African-American studies Ronald J. Stephens says Idlewild later became a must-play tour stop for iconic Black entertainers such as the Four Tops and Aretha Franklin, and saw as many as 25,000 visitors in a single weekend.
鈥淭hey called it 鈥榯he Summer Apollo of Michigan,鈥欌�� says Stephens, a reference to the iconic Black entertainment venue in New York City. 鈥淎retha Franklin writes about this in her autobiography: any Black artist that was going to make it in Black showbiz and Black entertainment had to go through [Idlewild].鈥�
Similar sites, resorts, and leisure spaces existed around the country.
Oak Bluffs in Martha鈥檚 Vineyard has been a center of African American life since the 18th century, according to Lawana Holland-Moore, program officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded nonprofit organization.
鈥淚n the 1930s, it became one of the best-known African American vacation resort spots. And this speaks to 鈥� that prestige that came with going to Martha鈥檚 Vineyard, owning one of those gingerbread cottages right there. It was somewhere to aspire to be able to vacation,鈥� explains Holland-Moore, who oversees the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a multiyear, $25 million-dollar initiative to identify, elevate, and support African American voices, stories, places, activism, and achievement.
in Florida, Bruce鈥檚 Beach, in Manhattan Beach, California, Lincoln Hills in Colorado, Highland Beach, Maryland, and , near Newaygo, Michigan, also catered to an emerging class of middle- and upper-class African Americans seeking an escape from racialized violence and persistent segregation.
Black beachgoers flocked to sites such as Atlantic Beach and in South Carolina and Carr鈥檚 Beach in Maryland, and other leisure sites and accommodations that the could safely recommend for Black vacationers and travelers.
Ironically, landmark legislation to reverse segregation and discrimination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, led to disinterest and divestment in these historic leisure sites.
鈥淲hen [integration] happened, Black folks started going to places where we were prohibited from prior to that,鈥� says McGill, who is also a history consultant for Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and former field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. 鈥淎nd when we started going to those places, then we started neglecting our places, our physical places that should have been preserved.鈥�
Preservation Challenges
Historic preservation in the United States has always centered White experiences and perspectives, presenting challenges to effective conservation of Black heritage sites, McGill says.
Demographics within conservation and preservation affect what sites and structures are preserved. White women spearheaded early historical societies, he explains, and subsequent groups would follow in their footsteps prioritizing whitewashed narratives of U.S. history.
Still today, the people most likely to be involved in cultural heritage planning and preservation are overwhelmingly White鈥攁nd will likely continue to be. In 2019, White people earned .
of the more than 95,000 entries in the National Register of Historic Places relate to Black American history.
鈥淗istoric preservation, in a general sense, tends to be a pursuit of happiness. 鈥� Saving those things that keep us in that comfortable place鈥攖hose nice, beautiful, architecturally significant places,鈥� says McGill. 鈥淎nd in doing that, we tend to leave out a lot of the history that tells the stories of the native Indigenous population, and the people who were enslaved. Because in our narrative, we want to squash that as much as possible.鈥�
Also, Holland-Moore says, African American heritage sites aren鈥檛 often 鈥済rand places, mansions, [or] places of wealth.鈥�
Legal loopholes around land ownership present another threat to the preservation of Black land and leisure spaces. They make 鈥渉eir鈥檚 property,鈥� land that passes down through a family or to multiple family members without a will鈥攁 likely method of transference within Black families鈥攙ulnerable to takeover and development.
Descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce, who opened a Black resort in Manhattan Beach in 1912, for the return of their families鈥� beachfront property鈥攚hich was appropriated by the city through . So far, they鈥檝e gotten an apology and a plaque.
Many Black people like the Bruce鈥檚 descendants have been stripped of hundreds of billions of dollars because of lost land, .
鈥淭heir effort to preserve these places is more of a challenge because of the wealth gap that was caused by the disenfranchisement of the Black folks upon freedom,鈥� says McGill. 鈥淭he freedom was there, but the wealth was not there to put the resources into the places that we should have saved, that could help tell our stories.鈥�
Preservation Actions
For decades, residents and community stakeholders, conservationists and academics鈥攊ncluding Stephens, who authored two books on Idlewild ( and )鈥攈ave been working to bring back Black leisure spaces into the public consciousness and to preserve these sites for future generations.
鈥淲hen we鈥檙e talking about Black recreation spaces, you know, this is important, because it is yet another facet within our story of who we are as African Americans,鈥� says the Action Fund鈥檚 Holland-Moore. 鈥淭he fact that we can even have [and] are even having recreation, that we are relaxing, that we are able to take our families and hit the road and go on vacation. That unto itself is such a novel chapter in our history: the fact that we can relax.鈥�
The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund was instrumental in revitalizing , a former luxury accommodation for African Americans and civil rights landmark in Birmingham, Alabama.
The group also recently wrote a letter of support to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to preserve part of a Chesapeake Bay property connected to Carr鈥檚 Beach, according to Holland-Moore. Earlier this year, the Maryland Cultural & Conference Center commissioned artist and activist Comacell Brown to create an on-site mural of Carr鈥檚 Beach.
In 2019, Mosquito Beach in South Carolina was added to the , the results of individual action and partnerships with the Historic Charleston Foundation, the National Park Service, and other community stakeholders.
Preservation at Idlewild has occurred in . A community plan established Idlewild Historic Cultural Center in 1973; the state founded the Idlewild Michigan Transformation Initiative in 2007 and awarded more than for renovation soon after. Idlewild hosts an and has numerous commemorative signs, but the community still has yet to return to its former glory, with iconic venues still shuttered and a population of just 771.
Reinvestment by wealthy Black entrepreneurs could point the way forward for other resorts.
For example, Denver-born billionaire Robert Smith, the wealthiest Black person in America, is a primary founder of , a nonprofit organization that offers culturally responsive outdoor education programs and activities in the tradition of historic Lincoln Hills.
While Lincoln Hills resort once catered to Black middle-class families, today the organization鈥檚 mission is to share the site鈥檚 history and provide outdoor experiences, such as horseback riding lessons and environmental conservation training, to those who may not have been able to otherwise access them.
Lincoln Hills Cares, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, plans to restore lodge, formerly a destination location for performers like Duke Ellington and Lena Horne and other elite visitors to Denver. Camp Nizhoni, a YMCA camp for Black girls who were excluded from other camps during segregation, was also part of Lincoln Hills鈥� original iteration.
Continued Radical Resistance
In the context of this past year鈥檚 racial reckoning, 鈥渁ll this craziness鈥� with the 1776 Commission and 鈥減atriotic education,鈥� says McGill, and our national fixation with Black trauma porn, Black leisure again seems as radical and relevant as it was a century ago.
Black people are continuing to carve out spaces for recreation and wellness through the exploding , as well as innovative BIPOC-led self-care projects, such as online community and .
We may have more options for travel, recreation, and restoration than our ancestors likely ever dreamed of, but it鈥檚 still important to safeguard the historic leisure sites of the past.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 already there is embodied energy. That embodied energy is, you know, those people who, before us, you know, created some of these spaces,鈥� says McGill. 鈥淲e honor them by, you know, making sure that these spaces continue to exist for future generations.鈥�
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Ruth Terry
is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Istanbul, Turkey, who writes about everything from race to rollerskating.聽
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Michelle Jackson
is an award-winning personal finance podcaster and freelance writer based in Colorado.
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