"MUSINGS ON THE BEACH"

 “MUSINGS ON THE BEACH”

Caroline and I were at the beach last week at Tybee Island near Savannah.  It’s still known as “Savannah Beach” by many.  It’s been one of our go-to beaches for over three decades.  We first learned about it from our late Oakhurst friend Fred Dresch, who loved going fishing there and also loved the funkiness of Tybee.  It was not very developed then, and it has still retained that “laid back” feeling.  Ever since we moved to Atlanta and the kids got old enough to enjoy the beach, we have tried to go somewhere each summer.  Through our friends Bob and Phoebe Smith in Daytona, we met Mary Ann Richardson who gave us a free place to stay at the El Caribe for over a decade – it was such a great gift to us.  She was so generous – we met Jim Wallis and Vincent Harding there, who were also gifted by her.

We keep going to Tybee because it is close, and because it is still relatively undeveloped.  We usually stay at a condo situated near the mouth of the Savannah River, and it is powerful to watch the Savannah River meet the Atlantic Ocean, with the River flowing to the southeast, and the Ocean rolling in to the west.  We often see dolphins swimming and sometimes frolicking – this time we saw a turtle taking its life in its legs by crossing busy Hiway 80 between Tybee and Savannah.  We heard rumors of an alligator nearby this time, but fortunately we never saw it.  It is both powerful and soothing to sit out in the hot sun, listening to the waves ebb and flow with the tides.  

     Since it is a Southern beach, Tybee has its share of historical racism.  It was a “whites only” beach for over a century.  Here is a description of its recent history from a plaque installed on Tybee in 2021.  “On August 17, 1960, eleven African-American students were arrested at Georgia’s first wade-in protesting the Whites-only public beaches. During the era of segregation, Savannah’s African Americans were forced to travel outside of the city for public beach access. NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins announced the wade-in as a desegregation tactic for public beaches following the April 1960 wade-in at Biloxi, Mississippi, where an angry White mob attacked protestors. An extension of the Savannah Movement, the Savannah Beach wade-ins were planned and implemented by the local NAACP Youth Council under the leadership of W. W. Law. The last wade-in at Savannah Beach was in July 1963. Savannah Beach and the city’s other public places were integrated by October 1963, eight months before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

  In our visits there lately, there have been a growing number of African-American tourists there, but nothing compares to the Orange Crush that happens at spring break in Tybee each year.   Black students on break come to Tybee, and the racism that is inherent in Southern white culture rears its head once again.  Orange Crush has officially moved to Jacksonville to friendlier confines, but some Black students still come to Tybee for spring break.  It is as if all those ancestors who were denied access to the beach at Tybee are now returning.

    We usually go into Savannah for a day while we are at Tybee, and this year was no exception.  We had planned to go on Thursday, but with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz coming into town as part of their bus tour that day, we opted for a Wednesday trip to Savannah.  Had we known the city and its streets better, we would have loved to go in on Thursday, but we figured that many streets would be blocked off.  Our usual gathering area is around Madison Square, which is next to the Green-Meldrim House. At that house in 1864, General William Sherman established his headquarters as he and the Union Army made its March to the Sea.  In this house, he met with Black ministers and other Black leaders, and they inspired Sherman to issue Field Order #15, which confiscated land previously owned by slavers, and then gave it to Black people as part of his “40 Acres and a Mule” reparations program.  President Andrew Johnson, a committed white Southerner, later rescinded that order as one of his first acts as President after Lincoln’s assassination.  What a difference Sherman’s order would have made, if it had stayed in place! 

     Also nearby are SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and the wonderful bookstore “The Book Lady” – as Susan has put it, that is a dangerous place for our family members to go!  Because of the timing this visit, we were not able to make a visit to the former childhood home of Flannery O’Connor, which is only open on weekends. O’Connor was born there and lived there into her early teens.

    This time, we went a couple of blocks south to the newly renamed Taylor Square.  It had previously been known as Calhoun Square, named after the infamous slaver and Confederate supporter and US Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun.  It is now named after Susie King Taylor, a Black woman who was born into slavery in 1848 in nearby Liberty County, but escaped slavery and became the first Black nurse in the Civil War.  Despite Georgia's harsh laws against the  education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by Black women. Her literacy proved invaluable not only to her but to other African Americans she educated during the Civil War. She became free at the age of 14 in 1862 when her uncle led her out to a federal gunboat near Confederate-held Fort Pulaski.  After a lot of work and lobbying, the Savannah city council voted unanimously in 2023 to rename the Calhoun Square to be the Taylor Square.  We can imagine that Calhoun is turning over in his grave at this development – or maybe by now, God and Ms. Taylor have brought Calhoun out of purgatory by converting him to the idea that all people are children of God.