"I am excited by this book. It is a great addition to the woefully scant scholarly materials that deal with the African American contribution to Florida history and culture. . . . Original and significant."--Patricia Waterman, University of South Florida
"The most detailed study that has been done on the history of American Beach. . . . A work of quality . . . very much welcomed."--Isiah J. Williams III, publisher and editor, Jacksonville Advocate
In the only complete history of Florida’s American Beach to date, Marsha Dean Phelts draws together personal interviews, photos, newspaper articles, memoirs, maps, and official documents to reconstruct the character and traditions of Amelia Island’s 200-acre African American community. In its heyday, when other beaches grudgingly provided only limited access, black vacationers traveled as many as 1,000 miles down the east coast of the United States and hundreds of miles along the Gulf coast to a beachfront that welcomed their business.
Beginning in 1781 with the Samuel Harrison homestead on the southern end of Amelia Island, Phelts traces the birth of the community to General Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, in which the Union granted many former Confederate coastal holdings, including Harrison’s property, to former slaves. She then follows the lineage of the first African American families known to have settled in the area to descendants remaining there today, including those of Zephaniah Kingsley and his wife, Anna Jai.
Moving through the Jim Crow era, Phelts describes the development of American Beach’s predecessors in the early 1900s. Finally, she provides the fullest account to date of the life and contributions of Abraham Lincoln Lewis, the wealthy African American businessman who in 1935, as president of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, initiated the purchase and development of the tract of seashore known as American Beach. From Lewis’s arrival on the scene, Phelts follows the community’s sustained development and growth, highlighting landmarks like the Ocean-Vu-Inn and the Blue Palace and concluding with a stirring plea for the preservation of American Beach, which is currently threatened by encroaching development.
In a narrative full of firsthand accounts and "old-timer" stories, Phelts, who has vacationed at American Beach since she was four and now lives there, frequently adopts the style of an oral historian to paint what is ultimately a personal and intimate portrait of a community rich in heritage and culture.
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A vivid recollection of a groundbreaking beach community
“This book is both distinctive and valuable as one of the relatively few books on African Americans in Florida and as one of the even smaller number of publications treating the subject of well-to-do blacks.”—Choice
“An insider’s account, which is remarkably candid about the strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and pitfalls, of the community.”—Southern Quarterly
“This is a lively story of a place marked by community, sociability and food, where generations of families found an oasis from racism.”—Publishers Weekly
“The vivid, personal story of American Beach, a coastal community on Amelia Island in northeastern Florida . . . blends oral history with never-before-collected documents dating back to the turn of the century, including photographs, historical records, and even recipes for such local favorites as Daddy Charlie’s Jamaican Con Pollo.”—Preservation
“More than a study of African American recreation, the book provides insight into the self-sufficient African American communities that were commonplace in the days of Jim Crow and their ultimate decline after desegregation.”—Alabama Review
“Marsha Dean Phelts uses facts, photographs, profiles, memories and recipes to tell a story as intimate as the epics we enjoy over pie and coffee. It’s less a book about racial discrimination than it is a story of the consequences for the people of a particular community and their triumph over confinement.”—Tampa Tribune
Marsha Dean Phelts draws together personal interviews, photos, newspaper articles, memoirs, maps, and official documents to reconstruct the character and traditions of Amelia Island’s 200-acre African American community. Phelts invokes colorful firsthand accounts and “old-timer” stories, and paints what is ultimately a personal and intimate portrait of a community rich in heritage and culture.
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