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

There is a growing awareness of the need for a more critical analysis of the centrality of race in discussions of stewardship of heritage resources. In this article heritage is examined through the lens of leisure, travel, and tourism with respect to race with a specific emphasis on U.S. National Park sites in the Southeast region. In the U.S. restrictions to freedom of movement and access to public sites of leisure were real for those identified as non-white prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a much talked about speech delivered in 1948 by then U.S. presidential candidate Strom Thurmond, he declared theaters, swimming pools, homes, and churches off limits to integration between Blacks and Whites in the U.S. South. Engaging both the exclusion theory and utilizing the notion of artifacts of segregation as a tool of analysis, I place the Negro Travelers Green Book travel guide series and Strom Thurmond’s 1948 speech in direct relief. This article challenges limited and limiting representations of African American experiences of travel and leisure at public sites of cultural and natural history and heritage.

Jackson, Antoinette T. “Remembering Jim Crow, Again – Critical Representations of African American Experiences of Travel and Leisure at U.S. National Park Sites.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 25, no. 7 (July 3, 2019): 671–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2018.1544920.