“The minute you walk on the beach it is a very different feeling from any beach I’ve ever been on,” – GiGi Lucas, founder of SurfearNegra
Hey so, a number of years ago, I pitched a couple of pieces to a website doing a series of theme park/vacation articles. One, about American Beach, got picked up. I wrote it, sent it in, and then—never heard from the editor again. Freelancing. I’m proud of the work I did on it, and also I need to clear some space in my Google Drive and don’t feel like trying to pitch it somewhere else. So here you go, a honest-to-God feature on American Beach, the U.S.’s first all-Black beach resort.
Be sure to check out January’s episode of The Line Break podcast, featuring Melissa Ferrer Civil. Melissa reads from their own work as well as Angel Nafis’s poem “Ghazal for Becoming Your Own Country.” We also happened to be talking the day I finished the Audre Lorde blog, and turns out Melissa’s a fan of Black Women Writers At Work, too! Cool stuff, fun interview. Apple | Spotify | Soundcloud
Certain images of protest during the Civil Rights Movement are seared into Americans’ popular imagination: lunch counter sit-ins. The March On Washington. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, with Rosa Parks’ determined stare out the bus window. One image that doesn’t get brought up as much: police forcibly hauling demonstrators out of segregated beaches during wade-ins.
Yes, beaches: sun, sea, sand—and segregation. Welcome to the U.S.A. Up North, hotels included “No Hebrews or Consumptives” in their ads, leading to Jewish people developing the Borscht Belt and launching the careers of comedians like Mel Brooks. Down South, ads weren’t necessary. Jim Crow kept beaches monochromatic and pale.
Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida’s First Black Millionaire
Against this backdrop, A.L. Lewis—Florida’s first Black millionaire—built American Beach. A place Black people could go for “recreation and relaxation without humiliation.” Starting from 33 acres on Amelia Island, the resort eventually expanded into over 200 acres and could handle crowds of thousands. “A.L.” stood for Abraham Lincoln Lewis, the first of his family to be born after the abolition of slavery. He was a man with an estimated third-grade education and a vision for a place of peace for Black people. He made his money as one of the founders of Afro-American Life Insurance Company, created so that those living under Jim Crow could bury loved ones with dignity. The company also “functioned as a lot of things we think of as government responsibility or social service,” said Lewis’s great-grand-niece, Peri Frances. Lewis founded the Lincoln Golf and Country Club in Jacksonville in 1926. Then, in 1935, came American Beach.
Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Lewis’s great-granddaughter, called him an “exceedingly proper individual,” wearing a tie on the beach. Even paradise needs a business mind. Lewis taught his grandchildren the keys to success were the “three B’s,” Dr. Cole told the Tampa Bay Times: Bible, school books, and bank books. Work ethic bore fruit, and American Beach quickly became the place to be.
“Rest and Relaxation Without Humiliation”
An incomplete list of historic names who vacationed at American Beach would include stars like Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sherman Helmsley, Cab Calloway; athletes like Hank Aaron and Joe Louis; writer/anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston; presidents and professors of HBCUs like Mary McLeod Bethune, George W. Gore, Nathan W. Collier, Frederick Douglas Patterson, and William B. Stewart. The stars came out to play, but the resort was for everyone—prices were affordable, and the full Greyhound buses dropping off families, church groups, and tourists were endless.
What does anyone want out of a beach vacation? You can talk sun and surf all you want, but the heart of the matter is peace.
Strawberry ice cream was ten cents. Sun shone not just on wine-dark sea but on huge oak trees, saw palmetto, and Florida’s largest dune system. Locally-owned hotels served fresh-caught fish and shrimp. There was a Miss American Beach pageant. A nightclub, Evans’ Rendezvous, was beating heart of American Beach—a spot on the famed Chitlin Circuit, a series of Black-owned nightclubs in the South and Midwest that could be thought of as a spiritual cousin to the Borscht Belt’s comedy scene. But mostly, American Beach was a place for Black families to go and relax in a world that didn’t want them to relax.
Resident James A. Robinson, who first visited in the 1940s, created an outdoor art installation with a photo of Lewis. “[Lewis] could have bought a small piece of property for him and his family,” Robinson said. “Instead he had a system set up where black people could buy here. They couldn’t go no place else. We’re thanking him.”
Natural Disasters and Unintended Consequences
In 1964, two events spelled the end for the peak of American Beach: first, Hurricane Dora devastated much of the community, and second, the Civil Rights Act passed, forcing other beaches to integrate. To state the obvious, the Civil Rights Act was a good thing. But suddenly, American Beach was trying to rebuild from a hurricane, and there were other beaches elsewhere. If they’re open, why not try other spots?
“That beach is life itself,” Willie Mae Ashley, 74, told the Orlando Sentinel in 1997. “We thought the grass was greener elsewhere. We found it wasn’t. You want to come home. But there’s not much home to come to.”
The decades between 1964 and the early aughts were a period of decline or transition for American Beach, depending on framing. Glitzy days of Cab Calloway performing in front of a young James Brown were gone. By the 90s, the population was in the 30s. But the desire to preserve the spirit of A.L. Lewis’s vision was there.
“We’re having a renaissance,” another resident named MaVynne Betsch said in that same 1997 article. “American Beach is evolving and Black folks are rediscovering their pride.”
“The Beach Lady” MaVynee Betsch and The Beach As Religion
Historic sites only become so if people are willing to preserve them and tell their stories. The past is knowable thanks to those who celebrate it.
The U.S. has no shortage of folk heroes and larger-than-life figures, and MaVynee Betsch belongs in that canon. Born Marvyne in 1935 (she added an extra “e” for the environment and dropped the “r” because she hated Ronald Reagan), Ms. Betsch stood six feet tall, wore flowing, brightly-colored kaftans, had 14-inch fingernails, made from shells and stones, and had seven-foot hair that the Orlando Sentinel described as “one vast Rasta-style lock that rises from her head and flows down her back, following the shape, she says, of the Niger River.”
She also was A.L. Lewis’s great-granddaughter (Dr. Cole’s sister) who dedicated her life to preserving the history of American Beach, planting trees in the area, dissuading hikers from damaging Nana Dune, and even selling her inherited family home to support environmental/historic charities. She toured Europe as an opera singer, she worked as a health administrator, she was an eco-feminist activist. She also spent the entire 90s and early aughts fighting off developers, who wanted to turn the first Black beach resort into another Ritz-Carlton.
“If I wanted to, I could straighten my hair and change my clothes. But we don’t want to look like another version of Orlando,” MaVynee Betsch said.
Because reality doesn’t have a sense of irony, one of the developers was called Amelia Island Plantation Co. One of MaVynee’s cousins had sold 80 acres for about $5 million back in 1995, land that included NaNa Dune, the largest dune in Florida. NaNa Dune was a crown jewel of American Beach, one MaVynee felt a strong connection with, even composing an ode to the landmark: “‘Death will not take me from my beloved NaNa. I wish my ashes to be part of that eternal softness of sand—a magic world that makes my life a constant joy at American Beach—my Sacred Place.” Eventually, NaNa Dune was turned over to the National Park Service, “permanently, forever,” said Jack Healan, president of Amelia Island Plantation Co.
MaVynee took a victory lap at the ceremony. Here’s how the Palm Beach Post described it: “‘God comes back as a loyal python in the African religion,’ MaVynee said, presenting Healan with a photo of her, in her totem-like hair, and a python wrapped around a very large pole. ‘You didn’t have a chance,’ she said with a roar of laughter, before signing the photo for Healan.” An adversary to developers, indeed.
Others have told of the spiritual pull of the beach. Quentin Jones, who served as president of the American Beach Merchants Association and called himself “the conscience of American Beach,” said “being here helps me understand who I am. I have a connection, a sense of place with this land. I plan to be part of the revival.” John Sayles’s film Sunshine State was inspired the struggle over American Beach in the 90s.
Bobby Dollison, who didn’t grow up in American Beach but knew of it, described trying to find it on a lark in 1979: “I always said to myself, ‘‘Wouldn’t it be great to find a black beach somewhere?’” On the drive, Dollison and his wife got lost, saying “the sun was going down on us. There weren’t any signs back then.” About to give up, the couple turned one last corner. Then they heard music. They drove towards it, eventually seeing bright lights and crowds of people out, enjoying the evening. In a way he couldn’t name, Dollison knew he was at the right place. “From then on, I ain’t been to no other beach,” he said. “It made me feel comfortable. I felt like I was home.” The couple purchased American Beach Villas, a house with 22 apartments to rent, and Dollison would later own the American Beach Water System.
American Beach Today
Today, there is the American Beach Museum and Community Center. Like Moses and Dr. King before her, The Beach Lady died before seeing the Promised Land: the museum opened in 2014, nine years after her death. Before that, MaVynee Betsch’s self-named “revolutionary headquarters” was a double-wide filled with artifacts, photos, and keepsakes from American Beach’s heyday, according to Executive Director Carol Alexander. “She had the magic,” Alexander says of Betsch.
Today, American Beach exists in an odd space between past and future. Vacant lots sit next to million-dollar homes. The National Register of Historic Places dedicated the original 33 acres of the beach as worthy of historic preservation, but the future remains to be determined. As recently as 1997, you could get boiled peanuts for $2 a bag on Lewis Street.
Today, people are still going to American Beach. In 2020, there was a Juneteenth celebration held by Deyona Burton, founder of the SPEAR initiative, and GiGi Lucas, founder of SurfearNegra. Both told Thrillist about the spiritual energy they felt on American Beach. “The minute you walk on the beach it is a very different feeling from any beach I’ve ever been on,” said Lucas, who has surfed beaches all over the world. Alexander says: “You can feel the spirits of the original sojourners who came in 1935, the ones who had that determination to rise above those waves.”
Today, the beach remains a beach. Nana Dune is now under the control of the North Florida Land Trust, and should be spared from developers forever. It is still the largest dune system remaining in Florida. There is still saw palmetto and twisting oaks. It’s still a good spot to surf and listen to music. Rest and relaxation without humiliation.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris