The Land Was Ours

Blending social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl tells the story of African American owned beaches in the twentieth century. By reconstructing African American life along the coast, Kahrl demonstrates just how important these properties were for African American communities and leisure, as well as for economic empowerment, especially during the era ofthe Jim Crow South.

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The coasts of today’s American South feature luxury condominiums,resorts, and gated communities, yet just a century ago, a surprising amountof beachfront property in the Chesapeake, along the Carolina shores, andaround the Gulf of Mexico was owned and populated by African Americans.Blending social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl tells the storyof African American–owned beaches in the twentieth century. By reconstructingAfrican American life along the coast, Kahrl demonstrates just howimportant these properties were for African American communities andleisure, as well as for economic empowerment, especially during the era ofthe Jim Crow South. However, in the wake of the civil rights movement andamid the growing prosperity of the Sunbelt, many African Americans fellvictim to effective campaigns to dispossess black landowners of their propertiesand beaches.

Kahrl makes a signal contribution to our understanding of AfricanAmerican landowners and real-estate developers, as well as the developmentof coastal capitalism along the southern seaboard, tying the creation of overdeveloped,unsustainable coastlines to the unmaking of black communitiesand cultures along the shore. The result is a skillful appraisal of the ambiguouslegacy of racial progress in the Sunbelt.