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American Beach
American Beach is a historic beach community in northeastern Florida once popular with African-American vacationers. It is located north of Jacksonville on Amelia Island in Nassau County. During the time of segregation and the Jim Crow era, African Americans were denied access to many public amenities such as public pools and beaches in order to increase the value of nearby real estate, among other reasons. In view of this Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida's first black millionaire and president of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, founded American Beach as a community that was visited mostly by African Americans, though all were welcome. It contains the American Beach Historic District, a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. History American Beach was co-founded in 1935 by Florida's first black millionaire, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, and his Afro-American Life Insurance Company. A. L. Lewis was one of the original founders ...
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Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the county seat, seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the city government Jacksonville Consolidation, consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits. As of 2020 United States census, 2020, Jacksonville's population is 949,611, making it the List of United States cities by population, 12th most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the most populous city in the Southern United States, South outside of the state of Texas. With a population of 1,733,937, the Jacksonville metropolitan area ranks as Florida's fourth-largest metropolitan region. Jacksonville straddles the St. Johns ...
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Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two ''Modern Sounds'' albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the ''Billboard'' ...
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Amelia Island Plantation
Omni Amelia Island Resort is a luxury resort community located on Amelia Island, Florida, the westernmost barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean in the U.S. The resort's tennis facility hosted the Bausch & Lomb Championships, a major Women's Tennis Association tournament, for 20 years. The 402-room hotel on the property is now part of Omni Hotels & Resorts. Resort The 1,350 acre community includes a 402-room resort, nine restaurants, 46 holes of championship golf, 7 pickleball courts and 23 Har-Tru clay tennis courts. The development has a total value of $1.95 billion when the 1,150 condominiums, 800 homes and unbuilt lots are counted. History Development of Amelia Island Resort began in 1971 by the Hilton Head Island's ''Sea Pines Company''. Under Fraser’s Vice President, landscape architect Arthur Foster, and his design staff, the master plan for Amelia Island was prepared. A variety of consultants advised Foster in the master planning of Amelia Island. The emphasis of Foster ...
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Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late 19th century, banning discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965. In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of '' Plessy vs. Ferguson'', in which the Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine concerning facil ...
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MaVynee Betsch
MaVynee Betsch, christened Marvyne Elisabeth Betsch (January 13, 1935 – September 5, 2005), was an American environmentalist and an activist. She was better known as The Beach Lady, because she spent the better part of her adult life educating the public on the black history and environmental importance of American Beach. Born in Jacksonville in 1935, Betsch lived at American Beach on Amelia Island, Florida, the African-American Hyannis port, where the crème de la crème of black society came to relax in the Jim Crow South. MaVynee’s millionaire grandfather, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, founded the beach, and she was raised in luxury as a member of the African-American upper class. Her wealth and privilege vanished after she later gave away her entire fortune to environmental causes. Afterwards, she slept on American Beach in a chaise longue for the rest of her life. Life Betsch was born into one of the preeminent black families in the South.
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Desegregation In The United States
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact on the settlement patterns of various groups. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American civil rights movement, both before and after the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court's decision in ''Brown v. Board of Education'', particularly desegregation of the school systems and the military (''see Military history of African Americans''). Racial integration of society was a closely related goal. US military Early history Starting with King Philip's War in the 17th century, Black and White Americans served together in an integrated environment in the Thirteen Colonies. They continued to fight alongside each other in every American war until the war of ...
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Racial Segregation In The United States
In the United States, racial segregation is the systematic separation of facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation on racial grounds. The term is mainly used in reference to the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, but it is also used in reference to the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority and mainstream communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage (enforced with anti-miscegenation laws), and the separation of roles within an institution. Notably, in the United States Armed Forces up until 1948, black units were typically separated from white units but were still led by white officers. Signs were used to indicate where African Americans could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the con ...
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Civil Rights Act Of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history". Initially, powers given to enforce the act were weak, but these were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. The legislation was proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but it was opposed ...
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Hurricane Dora
Hurricane Dora was the first tropical cyclone on record to make landfall over the Atlantic coast of North Florida at hurricane intensity. The sixth tropical storm and second hurricane of the 1964 season, Dora developed from a tropical wave near the coast of Senegal on August 28. After a reconnaissance aircraft flight on September 1, the depression was upgraded to Tropical Storm Dora. It then curved northeastward and continued to strengthen. By early on September 3, Dora became a Category 1 hurricane. Six hours later, the storm reached Category 2 intensity. Intensification slowed somewhat, though Dora became a Category 3 on September 5. Deepening further, the storm peaked as a Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of early the following day. At 18:00 UTC on September 6, Dora weakened to a Category 3 hurricane, then a Category 2 hurricane while curving westward early the following day. Later on September 7, Dora ...
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James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honorific nicknames "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business", "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986. Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. He first came to national public attention in the mid-1950s as the lead singer of the Famous Flames, a rhythm and blues vocal group founded by Bobby Byrd. With the hit ballads " Please, Please, Please" and " Try Me", Brown built a reputation as a dynamic live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes ...
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Sherman Hemsley
Sherman Alexander Hemsley (February 1, 1938 – July 24, 2012) was an American actor. He was known for his roles as George Jefferson on the CBS television series ''All in the Family'' (1973–1975; 1978) and ''The Jeffersons'' (1975–1985), Deacon Ernest Frye on the NBC series ''Amen'' (1986–1991), and B. P. Richfield on the ABC series ''Dinosaurs''. Hemsley also played Judge Carl Robertson on the NBC series ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air''. For his work on ''The Jeffersons'', Hemsley was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award. Hemsley also won an NAACP Image Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series or Special ("The Jeffersons") in 1982. Biography Early life, education and service Hemsley was born and raised in South Philadelphia by his mother, who worked in a lamp factory. Hemsley did not meet his father until he was 14. Hemsley graduated from Barrat Middle School. For high school, Hemsley attended Central High School for ninth grade and Bok ...
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Ossie Davis
Raiford Chatman "Ossie" Davis (December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He and his wife were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame; were awarded the National Medal of ArtsLifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts
and were recipients of the . He was inducted into the in 1994.


Early life

Raiford Chatma ...
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