The land was ours : African American beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South / Andrew W. Kahrl.

Kahrl, Andrew W., 1978-
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.
Added to CLICnet on 04/23/2014

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction : bring back my yesterday — Corporate ventures — A sanctuary by the sea — Building Black privatopias — Surviving the summer — Family ties — Spinning sand into gold — The price we pay for progress.
Driving along the coasts of the American South, we see miles of luxury condominiums, timeshare resorts, and gated communities. Yet, a century ago, a surprising amount of beachfront property in the Chesapeake, along the Carolina shore, and around the Gulf of Mexico was owned and populated by African Americans. In a pathbreaking combination of social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl shows how the rise and fall of Jim Crow and the growing prosperity of the Sunbelt have transformed both communities and ecosystems along the southern seaboard. Kahrl traces the history of these dynamic coastlines in all their incarnations, from unimproved marshlands to segregated beaches, from exclusive resorts for the black elite to campgrounds for religious revival. His careful reconstruction of African American life, labor, and leisure in small oceanside communities reveals the variety of ways African Americans pursued freedom and mobility through the land under their feet. — from publisher’s website.

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Requested by Lansing, M

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