When Your Beach Trip Sends You Down a Historical Rabbit Hole

During its heyday, cars would park along the shore of American Beach. (Photo courtesy Amelia Island Museum of History and Florida State Archives. All other images courtesy Rebecca T. Minder)

My husband and I frequently visit Amelia Island, Florida, for a respite from the chaos of our daily lives, and because of our passion for history, we usually include some element of education with each trip. On our most-recent vacation, we visited the usual stops, including historic Fort Clinch. But it was a smaller, out-of-the-way beach that drew our attention most: American Beach, especially after learning if its Alabama connection. After hiking for miles along Black Rock Beach that was formed at the end of the Ice Age and truly transports you to Maui and then through Boneyard Beach that is full of eerie and majestical tree remains from storms past, we drove the short distance to American Beach. It was here that our day was spent, reading historic markers, talking with beach security officers, and researching every new detail that came to life. As my genealogy friends can relate, we hit a true historic rabbit hole.

Developed as one of the first African-American resorts, American Beach was founded in 1935 by Abraham Lincoln Lewis, owner of the Afro-American Insurance Company. Lewis purchased the land for his employees and customers to have an ocean-front space “for recreation and relaxation without humiliation” during the Jim Crow era. After desegregation, the beach became a shadow of its former luster as Blacks began to explore other locales from which they were formerly excluded such as Jacksonville, Florida, or Savannah, Georgia. Long gone are visits from dignitaries and celebrities like Ray Charles and Joe Louis during its heyday of the 1940s and '50s. The once vibrant Evans' Rendezvous nightclub, which once hosted Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong, has been shuttered since the 1980s. Surrounding lots are now vacant or have homes with boarded-up windows and decayed siding. A few newer homes, however, are sprouting up throughout the community, which is attempting to breathe life back into the historic area. The A.L. Lewis Museum at American Beach just hosted a grand reopening in October 2022. New historic markers that tell the stories of the community and its people were installed in 2021 as a Florida Heritage Site by the Friends of American Beach and the Florida Department of State.

But it’s the stories of the people, who came from all over the nation, to vacation at American Beach that drew us in – especially those from Alabama. One corner of the beach community sits two cottages owned by professors from Tuskegee, Alabama: the Guzmans and the Stewarts. The Guzman House, owned by Jessie Parkhurst Guzman and Ignacio L. Guzman, were both professors at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). Ignacio taught in the lithography department, starting in the early 1920s, where he met and married Jessie in 1940. Originally from Savannah, Georgia, Jessie began work at Tuskegee Institute as a research assistant in 1923, where she cataloged a list of lynching victims. Later she was the Dean of Women and the director of the Department of Research and Records at Tuskegee. Her work at Tuskegee earned her the honor of Tuskegee Woman of the Year in 1950. Jessie was also the first Black person to run post-Reconstruction for a public office and the first Black female to seek a public position in the state of Alabama when she ran for the Macon County, Alabama, Board of Education in 1954.
 
Across the street from the Guzman’s home is a vacation cottage owned by Ralph and Marie Taylor Stewart. Ralph was the first accountant for the Afro-American Life Insurance Company. The pension division of the AALF developed the land purchased by Lewis as a beach-front resort specifically for African Americans. Like the Guzmans, Ralph also had ties to Tuskegee Institute where he was a graduate. Ralph was also influential in recruiting Tuskegee employees and alumni to purchase homes on American Beach.
 
Next time you’re in the Jacksonville area, check out American Beach, a once idyllic place created by and for Blacks. It’s juxtaposition between a Ritz-Carlton and an Omni Resort does not go unnoticed; however, it’s actual location can be overlooked. Dedicate some time to enjoy the soft sands of the beach, visit the museum, trek along the Nana (the state’s tallest sand dune), and enjoy getting lost in the “rabbit hole” of learning about a time when those surroundings were as vibrant and spirited as Coney Island or Disneyland.
 
For more information:
https://www.nps.gov/timu/learn/historyculture/ambch_communityintransition.htm
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-08/the-forgotten-history-of-america-s-black-beach-resorts
https://www.monroeworktoday.org/extras/interview.html
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=139885
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_P._Guzman
https://friendsofamericanbeach.org/news-events/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/232569191/? 

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Rebecca Todd Minder at her happy place -- the beach.

Author

Rebecca Todd Minder is the director of Alabama Heritage. She and her husband, Gary, love to travel, especially to the beach, and often take their 95-pound chocolate lab Rocco and 38-pound beagle Belle.