Gregory W. Bush, White Sand, Black Beach: Civil Rights, Public Space, and Miami’s Virginia Key. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. 352. $29.95 (cloth).

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Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsGregory W. Bush, White Sand, Black Beach: Civil Rights, Public Space, and Miami’s Virginia Key. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. 352. $29.95 (cloth).Tiyi M. MorrisTiyi M. MorrisOhio State University Search for more articles by this author Ohio State UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn May 1945, attorney Lawson Thomas led a small group of black Miamians in a wade-in at Baker’s Haulover Beach State Park. No arrests were made, and subsequent negotiations between the black activists and white city officials led to the creation of Virginia Key Beach for blacks three months later. Gregory W. Bush marks this demonstration as a significant battle in Florida’s own “long Civil Rights Movement.” In White Sand, Black Beach, he examines the decades-long struggle over public leisure space in southern Florida centering on the Virginia Key Beach Park, which became the “first legally recognized bathing beach for people of African descent” (5). In so doing, he demonstrates the complex relationship between urban development, tourism, civil rights, and the role of government in a racially diverse community. Bush’s narrative of Virginia Key as a contested space spans the entirety of the twentieth century and concludes with contemporary efforts of restoration and preservation.Lest the reader assume a desire for access to recreational spaces a luxury when compared with other civil rights issues such as voting rights and equitable educational opportunities, Bush centers blacks’ fight for access to the beach in Miami as “part of their efforts to attain a more equitable share of public services, greater economic opportunities, and a measure of political power” (7). While black Floridians experienced the all too common realities of segregation, lack of political power, and inequitable public services, Bush contends that this civil rights struggle was unlike those in many other Southern cities. White elites in Miami evaded the violent confrontations that marred other cities to avoid disrupting its tourist economic base. Yet Bush demonstrates that the civil rights struggle in Miami was a long and persistent one that was heightened by an expanding suburbia and increasing tourism and consumerism.White Sand, Black Beach examines the establishment, evolution, demise, and efforts to revitalize Virginia Key as not only a key civil rights event but also as an important observation of black community building. Bush recounts the victory of securing a black beach, as well as the myriad and complex feelings that existed within the community. The joy of having a space they could call their own and that served as a crucial space for community and cultural development juxtaposed the persistent indignity of knowing that it was not equal with the places of leisure available to whites. The use of oral histories from blacks who frequented the beach to hang out or to attend special events such as baptisms, weddings, and church socials, brings the story to life and underscores the centrality of the use of public space and institution building to community development. Bush’s expansive use of secondary sources from environmental to urban history undergirds the importance of contextualizing the narrative in a frame that is broader than civil rights alone; however, the numerous historiographical comments would have been better placed in the footnotes, as they disrupt and weigh down the narrative. Furthermore, the civil rights story itself occasionally gets lost in this long and repetitive contextualization.As Bush traces the history of Virginia Key, he also recounts its demise, as integration led to abandonment and neglect. In the final chapter, Bush incorporates his own civic involvement in recent years in efforts to preserve Virginia Key and prevent commercial privatization of the island, reemphasizing that the struggle is far from over. While the book covers an important civil rights issue of equal access to public space, at times the reader is left feeling that civil rights takes a back seat to a history of city planning and development. The text would have benefited from greater use of the experiences and voices of African Americans, throughout the text, to balance out what is a long and somewhat cumbersome narrative of city planning. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 104, Number 1Winter 2019 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/701080 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.