Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America (Politics and Culture in Modern America)

In "Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America", Victoria W. Wolcott argues, “Historians must recognize that our view of what constituted civil rights activism cannot be a zero-sum game. Desegregating public accommodations was a goal powerfully desired by African Americas throughout the country” (pg. 3). Wolcott uses the attention to physical location from the spatial turn to situate this struggle to desegregate public accommodations firmly within the historiography of civil rights. Like many modern historians of the civil rights movement, she broadens the scope beyond the South to include Northern cities and states as key battlegrounds for activism.Wolcott focuses on the role of violence in maintaining segregation, though that violence often came from whites utilizing those spaces rather than from police. She writes, “To justify their actions officials invoked not the actual violence of white vigilantes but the perceived violence of black criminality that threatened white consumerism. In the end the effect was the same. Violence inscribed racial boundaries that were reinforced by local officials to justify their exclusion policies” (pg. 77). The changing demographics of urban centers played a key role in shifting the justification for segregation from race to crime prevention. Wolcott argues, “Increased residential segregation divided other American cities in both the North and the South as local municipalities developed racially exclusive public housing and urban renewal projects” (pg. 127). To this end, civic authorities and amusement park owners invoked juvenile delinquency to deflect attention from racial conflict (pg. 128). According to Wolcott, Disney’s construction of Disneyland represented the culmination of these efforts to circumscribe access to public accommodations. The park was inaccessible to all except those who owned a personal vehicle, which prevented the poor and teenagers from visiting. Its lack of spaces that permitted the easy mixing of the sexes removed the possibility of objectionable interracial conflict. And the private security was dressed and trained in a non-threatening manner, rather than like the hired toughs other parks used (pg. 155). Though the city developed around the park, Disney’s next amusement park also used relative geographic isolation to its advantage.While nostalgia pervades many examinations of amusement parks, it also serves to strip away the meaning of the struggles that occurred in those places. Wolcott argues, “Much of the blame for the wholesale decline of urban amusements lies in white abandonment of recreational facilities. And this abandonment, rooted in a refusal to share public space, had devastating consequences for the daily lives of urban dwellers” (pg. 232). Wolcott’s work lays bare the notion of a golden age of American amusement and shows how these spaces were always contested and helped define who could participate in consumerism and, by extension, reap the benefits of full citizenship.

Interesting account just not as relevant to my research on Virginia.

This book is a significant addition to the history of the civil rights movement. Unless you lived through the time periods discussed, you may be unaware that civil rights activism predated the 60s and predated Martin Luther King Jr.. In cities across the country, parents and students initiated and carried out important actions against discrimination and segregation. This book specifically covers protests and sit-ins against segregation in places of recreation - parks, pools, beaches, and amusement parks from about 1920 on. It includes northern cities and southern cities. It also touches on the history of discrimination among such institutions as the State parks, National Parks, the Boy & Girl Scouts, the YMCA & YWCA and Disneyland. These protests may seem relatively insignificant compared to discrimination in housing, employment, and the military but it was important to the families who were denied the use of facilities that were maintained with their tax money. In regions that have hot weather, access to pools & beaches was very important for children living in homes without air conditioning. Plus, these community amenities were right in the faces of the African American citizens and the segregation was getting old, to say the least. In some places, protests were carried out off and on for over twenty years before finally achieving integration Sometimes the NAACP or CORE would work on a protest action with the citizen activists, but often the parents or students managed on their own. Courageously they protested in spite of facing racist taunts, being spit upon, being thrown to the ground, being beaten with fists & chains & other implements, being threatened, being arrested. Some were even killed for trying to integrate a park. In 1943, there was a riot in Detroit over integrating a park and 34 people were killed (25 were African American). Some communities eventually integrated their parks but drew the line on allowing integrated swimming or dancing. They claimed to be concerned about the risk of disease from contact with black customers or the risk of violence when the real hysteria was about the risk of interracial friendships or dating. The violence that sometimes ensued at demonstrations was not the fault of the protesters; instead it was the racist whites who were frenzied with hate who started the violence. Sometimes the African American protesters held to non-violence strategies but other times, of necessity, they had to defend themselves. When white racists in Monroe, North Carolina- enraged about attempts to integrate a swimming pool- went to the protesters' homes & fired guns at their houses, the protesters fired their guns right back. This book is important history. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks deserve their fame but thousands of others participated in sit-ins and demonstrations long before they did. The real difference is the media. In the 60s, the media began showing the demonstrations to the American public and television viewers & newspaper readers were aghast at the horrific treatment of protesters. Being able to see it happen seemed to make all the difference and the country gradually began to side with the victims of discrimination rather than the perpetrators. Another excellent book that explores this topic by detailing one city's active fight against discrimination is Seattle in Black & White by Joan Singler. .