THE TYBEE ISLAND, GEORGIA BLACK HISTORY TRAIL: A COMMUNITY APPROACH to BLACK GEOGRAPHIES

Abstract

Tybee Island, Georgia, was a colonial borderland between Spanish and British America before evolving into a middle-class, seaside resort in the 1800s. It continued as a popular vacation spot in the twentieth century. However, research has highlighted the island’s troubling history of racial segregation, particularly surrounding events like the Orange Crush Beach Party. Previous studies also underscored the Historical Society ignoring the island’s Black history in its exhibits. Building on this, a collaborative project emerged in 2021 involving a Georgia Southern University faculty member and undergraduate student, Tybee MLK Human Rights Organization, and Tybee Island Historical Society. The goal was to create a Black History Trail highlighting a rich yet ignored Black history and culture on the island and addressing the exclusion of Tybee’s Black population from museums and markers. This project integrates community geography, focusing on resolving problems like social exclusion, and exploring spatialities of Black life, social oppressions, and resistance. Utilizing archival research, oral history interviews, and ArcGIS, the project developed a 13-stop virtual tour using ESRI Story Maps. We conclude our paper by highlighting the lessons learned during the trail’s development, the multitude of ways the trail embodies the theory of Black geographies in practice, and the broader challenges in honoring Tybee’s Black geographies. Keywords: community geography, Black geographies, Tybee Island, tourism, memory.