Remembering Jim Crow, again – critical representations of African American experiences of travel and leisure at U.S. National Park Sites

ABSTRACT

There is a growing awareness of the need for a more critical analysis of the centrality of race in discussions of stewardship of heritage resources. In this article heritage is examined through the lens of leisure, travel, and tourism with respect to race with a specific emphasis on U.S. National Park sites in the Southeast region. In the U.S. restrictions to freedom of movement and access to public sites of leisure were real for those identified as non-white prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a much talked about speech delivered in 1948 by then U.S. presidential candidate Strom Thurmond, he declared theaters, swimming pools, homes, and churches off limits to integration between Blacks and Whites in the U.S. South. Engaging both the exclusion theory and utilizing the notion of artifacts of segregation as a tool of analysis, I place the Negro Travelers Green Book travel guide series and Strom Thurmond’s 1948 speech in direct relief. This article challenges limited and limiting representations of African American experiences of travel and leisure at public sites of cultural and natural history and heritage.

KEYWORDS:

• Segregation
• race
• National Parks
• heritage resources
• recreation and leisure

Acknowledgments

Kingsley Plantation research was conducted under National Park Service (NPS) contract no. Q5038000491 ‘‘Ethnohistorical Study of Kingsley Plantation Community,’’ Allan F. Burns and Antoinette T. Jackson (University of Florida), coprincipal investigators.

This discussion is also informed by my tenure as the Regional Cultural Anthropologist for the National Park Service, Southeast Region in the U.S. from 2012 to 2016. I regularly visited National Park sites and consulted with personnel throughout the region (including TIMU), regarding issues of cultural resource management and strengthening relationships with associated communities. In the case of TIMU, for example, I worked with TIMU staff and management chartered with producing the TIMU State of the Park Report (National Park Service 2016). As I worked on this article, I reached out to current TIMU staff concerning gaps I observed in terms of representation of existing ethnographic research on the park website. Staff that responded to my inquiry were receptive and open to further discussions and have since made a few adjustments in terms of listing a broader range of published research about the park’s history. However, structural constraints, including lack of funding and decreased staffing, as well as lack of awareness of what is at issue, hinder further action. It is my hope that this article provides a more explicit model for seeing, articulating, and addressing issues of interpretation, not only at TIMU, but at National Park sites throughout the country.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. After leading an exodus of states’ rights Democrats from the convention floor in Philadelphia, Governor Thurmond addressed the first convention of the new party in Birmingham. He declared his opposition to admitting ‘the Negro race’ into civil society. Accessed 28 June 2018. https://pastdaily.com/2012/07/19/voice-of-the-dixiecrats-strom-thurmond-at-the-1948-democratic-convention-july-14-1948/.

2. Green Book. 1936–67. Travel series collection. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections. Victor H. Green and Company Publisher. Accessed 28 June 2018. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about.

3. Federal Register: 10 Fed. Reg. 14855 (1945, 8 December), p. 14866. A general bulletin issued to the National Park Service which mandated complete desegregation of all facilities in national parks including those managed by vendors and concessioners. Accessed 15 March 2018. https://www.loc.gov/item/fr010240/.

4. In 2001, Antoinette Jackson and the colleagues who helped with the fieldwork for the year-long Kingsley Plantation Ethnohistorical Study utilized participant observation and key informant interviews for the purpose of collecting oral history as the primary means of obtaining ethnographic field data about the Kingsley Plantation community. Interviews were conducted primarily with persons of African descent – ranging in ages from 20 to 86 years old. Research was conducted at the Kingsley Plantation site and throughout the greater Jacksonville, Florida area, as well as in the communities in St. Augustine and American Beach on Amelia Island. Special acknowledgement to the following persons for their efforts in support of the 2001 study: Marsha Dean Phelts; Barbara Goodman (NPS Superintendent of Fort Caroline National Memorial and Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve) and John Whitehurst (Cultural Resource Manager, NPS Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve) and their staff including Paul Ghioto (an excellent St. Johns River boat pilot and guide).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antoinette T. Jackson

Antoinette T. Jackson is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa and Director of the USF Heritage Research Lab (http://heritagelab.org/). Her book Speaking for the Enslaved—Heritage Interpretation at Antebellum Plantation Sites, was published by Routledge in 2012. She is currently completing a new book on heritage, race, and leisure and publication is forthcoming.