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

Religion, Segregation, and Voting Rights: Unforgetting the Legacies of Bishops George Foster Pierce and Lucius Henry Holsey in Hancock County, Georgia, USA

“…Similarly, Forrest Shivers, in his 1990 book, The Land Between, A History of Hancock County, Georgia to 1940, wrote that "Hancock planters had a reputation for generous and humane treatment of those they held in bondage" (Shivers 1990, p. 83). These accounts of the plantation economy contrast with written testimonies of people enslaved on the plantations (see also Jackson 2017Jackson , 2018Skipper 2016).…”

Heritage, Tourism, and Race

“…In general, white leisure and recreation experiences and the needs of white visitors and patrons during the Jim Crow era are privileged over African American experiences. Consequently, there is a pressing need for counter narratives of leisure (Giltner 2008;Jackson 2019;Kahrl 2012;O'Brien 2012). Therefore, this chapter identifies the other side of leisure by arguing that African descendant families pursued and expanded leisure outside of white-only frames during the era of seg regation.…”

“…Though the Fort George Hotel and the Fort George Club are no longer standing in their original form on park grounds, the lore of leisure as white remains the focal point in such publications. At the same time, discussions of segregation and active exclusion of non-white patrons from these facilities are typically absent from public interpretation of this site (Jackson 2019). And, African American labor, a critical part of the leisure story at these hotels and clubs, remains an under-analyzed aspect of the park's interpreta tion during the recreation era.…”

“…Many new stories shared by James Daniels (such as in the opening quote) about his family provide insight into Fort George Island specifically from the perspective of an African American family's associations with the island. These stories help link National Park Service accounts of the island to the everyday lives of people whose labor supported recreation activities during an important era of park history (Jackson 2019).…”

“…Although the Fort George Hotel, the Fort George Club, and the Ribault Club were established as white only, predominantly male spaces, to date the description on the website makes no mention of this (National Park Service 2018b). Moreover, there is no mention of segregation or of the segregated facilities on Fort George Island (Jackson 2019).…”