Transcript
Into America
Black Joy in the Summertime
Trymaine Lee: During the summers of my childhood in South Jersey, when the sun was bright and high, there were only a few ways to escape the heat. There was the ice cream man. (ICE CREAM TRUCK MUSIC) But that was just a momentary fix. And of course there was the log flume at Clementon Park, (SCREAMING) our rinky little budget amusement park which was pure unadulterated chaotic bliss, but could be a bit pricey for all of us.
But the one place I remember most fondly was Atsion Lake. Tucked in the Pine Barrens, it was a lake filled with dark, tea colored water, with mushy patches and sharp sticks beneath your toes, which you couldn’t even see. Going to Atsion Lake was a treat for those of us who didn’t have money for lean rides or rich relatives to send for us.
At Atsion, you didn’t even pay per person to get in. You paid per car. So we’d pile in, drive the 20 minutes, listening to WDAS, the local soul and R&B station on the radio. (MUSIC) Hand over a few bucks when we arrive, and the day was ours. Sandwiches in baggies, sour cream and onion chips, cheap soda from Acme in the cooler.
(MUSIC) You’d see your neighbors, your cousins, kids from school. And most of us wading in that cool, ugly, amazing water until the sun went down or black. And it was beautiful. In some ways looking back, I can’t help but think we were escaping more than the summer sun. We were finding the freedom to just be.
In a world where being Black and free are not always congruent, Black folks in America have always found ways of escaping the strictures of this country’s invisible and sometimes geographic racial boundaries. And there are few more vivid illustrations of that escapism than our summer traditions.
Some were sent back down South to visit relatives. Others took road trips along well-worn paths to places like Atsion Lake. Still others created havens that would draw on more than just Black tourists who were running from the heat of summer and the heat of racism.
Black people have sought and built whole towns and resorts that became beacons of Black self-sufficiency and independence where families could swim and boat and fish and be their full selves in peace. Teachers and artists, businessmen and women, working and middle class folks flocked to places with names like Idlewild in Michigan, Highland Beach in Maryland, Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and Bruce’s Beach in California.
These Black Edens drew generations of upwardly mobile Black people who were shut out of white American during much of the 20th century. Today just a few of these communities remain predominantly Black, if they remain at all. They’ve been done in by desegregation, the evolving whims of a younger generation of Black families, and more recently gentrification. But some of these havens have survived.
William Pickens Iii: The tension was removed. It was friendship and fun and games and solidarity. We stayed strong. And we still are strong.
Lee: I’m Trymaine Lee. And this is Into America. Today with summertime upon us, we explore the traditions and legacy of summering while Black, and one of the last and shrinking Black beach communities in the United States, an historic enclave in Sag Harbor on Long Island.
Pickens Iii: It was unusual for African Americans to find a place near the water–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: –or on the water.
Lee: William Pickens III spent almost his entire life going to Sag Harbor in the summers, first as a kid, then taking his own family out there for the season. What age did you start goin’ out there for the summers?
Pickens Iii: Ten. I was ten.
Lee: Ten years old.
Pickens Iii: And I’m almost 85. So I came out here at a tender age.
Lee: When he retired, he decided to live out there full-time.
Pickens Iii: So I’ve been here 20 years. I was the first one in my family to retire here.
Lee: I met Mr. Pickens back in 2011 when I wrote a story about Sag Harbor for the Huffington Post. So I called him back up to talk about the importance of this place, its history, and his experience growing up in the Black Hamptons.
Pickens Iii: I had an aunt who had a home here she built in 1908.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: And I came out in lieu of going to camp in the ’40s. I came to Sag Harbor. I didn’t like camp, too regimented. So I came out here (LAUGH) where I could fish and swim and run and bike and all that stuff.
Lee: So what was that initial appeal? You have to imagine 1908, you know, America was a different place. But Black folks were finding their way out there. What was the appeal?
Pickens Iii: Well, it was bucolic, a country setting on the water. So she liked it and heard about it and came out and we bought a little house with outdoor plumbing, not inside plumbing. We had an outhouse. (LAUGH)
Lee: That’s old school, huh?
Pickens Iii: That was old school. But that was how our family first came to Sag Harbor, 113 years ago.
Lee: Wow. And so you all were still travellin’ from New York, from the city?
Pickens Iii: Yeah, yeah. From our home in Brooklyn. We had a townhouse in Brooklyn. And if the whole family was coming out, my mother would prepare lunch, sandwiches and put it on ice from the ice box. If you didn’t have a refrigerator, you had an ice box. And we would load the car. We had a Buick. And Dad would drive. And it was a long trip in those days. You didn’t have all these super highways. It was a four-hour, five-hour trip. And there were–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: –only gas stations every, you know, 40 or 50 miles. So. (LAUGH)
Lee: Pfew. Wow.
Pickens Iii: And then we’d get to Sag Harbor. And we’d unpack the car and go to home. By then we had our own home in 1950. So we unloaded and began to enjoy the wonders of Sag Harbor as a family.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: It was country. Far different than Brooklyn. You went from concrete to sand and dirt noise to quiet. There was an enormous difference in the quality of life. The space and the clean air and the stars at night. In Brooklyn you had smoke coming out of chimneys. And you never saw the stars.
But here, they were clarion clear. And you could see Betelgeuse or the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper. You couldn’t see them in New York. But you could see ’em out here in Sag Harbor. And at one point I knew all the name of all of the stars. But that was years ago, and my mind was a lot sharper. For me it was a great change from Brooklyn. And I loved it.
Lee: How often would you all go out there?
Pickens Iii: Well, I came out in summers in those days. No one lived here year around except the Shinnecock and Montauk families, pretty much. But for African American families, year around existence wasn’t possible then. And so it was a summer retreat. Memorial Day to Labor Day.
And that 90-day period was when you had family and friends come out. And that’s how we did Sag Harbor. And then one day in the ’50s, some guy named Colin Powell showed up from the Bronx. And we became friends. And we both went in the service later in our lives. And he stayed and did pretty well.
Lee: He did all right (LAUGH) for himself. I think he did all right.
Pickens Iii: Colin did okay.
Lee: And what were some of the summer traditions the they’re family would take part in?
Pickens Iii: Well, we rode our bikes. We had BB guns. We swam a lot. I hit the beach, played baseball. You remember Jackie Robinson had just joined the Dodgers. So all the Black kids out here and the Indian kids, the Shinnecocks and the Montauks, we were all playin’ baseball thinkin’ we–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: We could be the next Jackie Robinson, you know. (LAUGH)
Lee: That’s amazing.
Pickens Iii: There were bicycle races and this kind of thing. It was very simple, nothing too elegant or strategic, but fun. And I remember some fishing trips, and my father bought a boat. And he’d like to go fishing for porgies and this kind of thing. And adventure, hide and seek, the kids would play hide and seek and all the children’s games that we brought out from Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Johnny on the Pony and Ring-a-Levio, we played those games out here. And it was fun in the woodlands because you could hide better than you can in the (LAUGH) tenements of Brooklyn. (LAUGH) Kids had more freedom. You weren’t monitored, you know, 24/7.
And you learned a lot about yourself and your friends. There was more free time, more your own time. And you’re learning how to do things and how to experiment. If you didn’t feel like you’d something in Brooklyn, you could try it out here. And it helped us all to grow into manhood.
Lee: You know, it sounds like, you know, it was a means to escape the hubbub of the city and city life. But in many ways escaping racism and the gaze of white folks, where Black people would come together and be who we are together. Is that accurate?
Pickens Iii: Well, it removed the racial tension that is omnipresent in America where white resentment works its way into your daily living. Here a community of people who knew each other, had gone to college together, had worked together, had lived together in Queens or Brooklyn or New Jersey or Connecticut.
So we did not have the police looking at us askance and saying, you know, “We don’t really trust you guys. You’re newcomers. We’re gonna keep an eye on you.” We didn’t have that here. We did not have the daily tension of the white power structure looking at us over our shoulder, monitoring our behavior. Didn’t have that. We were sort of a closed society here where our mores and folk ways were ours. They weren’t imposed on us. They were generated by us. Big difference. Big difference.
Lee: Why were communities like these in Sag Harbor safe spaces for Black people?
Pickens Iii: Well, back then the town which was 99% white, there were work men in town, the plumbers and the architects and the, you know, you name it, gas providers. And our relationship became interesting because they needed our money. Because the war had ended.
And this town was struggling financially. And Black folks injected a lot of cash into this society. So our relationship was fine, but there wasn’t much social intercourse though. The African American families all sort of knew each other.
There were just 12 of us at one point, 12 families, here in Sag Harbor Hills. But we all knew each other, including my grade school principal. He was here, much to my chagrin. (LAUGH) I thought I’d left him in Brooklyn. But he bought a house right in front of ours. (LAUGHTER)
Lee: What did it mean to look and see this community, this burgeoning community, of hard-working industrious beautiful Black people?
Pickens Iii: Well, it was funny because you had judges and lawyers and doctors and dentists. And you had bus drivers. You had taxi drivers. You know, we didn’t have any differentiation among the professionals versus the non-professionals. We were friends and family. And your title did not matter. It did not matter. Our first house guest was Langston Hughes–
Lee: That’s amazing.
Pickens Iii: –the great writer and poet. He was my father’s roommate in college. And he came here in 1952 and read some poems.
Lee: Was he just just Langston, a family friend? He’s just–
Pickens Iii: Yes.
Lee: –Langston? You didn’t call him–
Pickens Iii: I called Uncle Langston, you know. (LAUGH) But he and my mother were very tight. Because they had met in, I’d say 1925, when he was a student. And she encouraged him in poetry. She encouraged. She would write him and say, “You should publish this.” And he’d write back.
I have these letters. He would write back, “Oh, I’m not famous.” You know, (LAUGHTER) and but she would cajole him and encourage him. And but when he told my father that he’d met this attractive woman in Philadelphia, my dad sought her out and finally married her. So.
Lee: Let’s stop the story right here. So Langston Hughes was the matchmaker for your–
Pickens Iii: Yeah.
Lee: –parents?
Pickens Iii: Yeah, Langston Hughes went back–
Lee: Come on.
Pickens Iii: –and told his roommate that there was this fox in Philadelphia.
Lee: You gotta meet her.
Pickens Iii: You you gotta meet her. And (LAUGH) Pop met her. And he wanted to marry her. But his father said, “You gotta finish law school first before you marry.” He said, “I don’t know if I can leave her out there available. (LAUGH) I better marry her.” So.
Lee: Better hurry up.
Pickens Iii: So they made a deal. He married her in 1930 while he was still a freshman in law school. So.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: He wanted to go away to graduation in 1932. He said–
Lee: No, that fox.
Pickens Iii: –no.
Lee: You’re not gonna leave that fox out there just–
Pickens Iii: Hello. (LAUGH) So anyway. But Langston was instrumental in putting them together.
Lee: Mr. Pickens, when all this is going on, Colin Powell is a friend of yours, you got Uncle Langston. Did you realize then even as a child that there was somethin’ special about where you all were?
Pickens Iii: I took it as sort of ordinary. Because they were my parents’ friends and colleagues. They weren’t celebrities. But we never thought that this was such a super special place that we were so different from our friends back in Brooklyn.
Lee: Wow. When did it start to grow?
Pickens Iii: Well, it grew in the ’60s. It started growing in the late ’60s. And it was during July of 1962, I had just got three years in Japan. I came back as a first lieutenant in the Air Force and wasn’t thinkin’ about gettin’ married. I was thinkin’ about comin’ back and settin’ up my bachelor pad. (LAUGH)
Lee: Right.
Pickens Iii: And it was 1962 that I spotted some beautiful girl walkin’ up the beach in an orange bathin’ suit.
Lee: You could see the color. You could still see it–
Pickens Iii: Yeah, I could see.
Lee: –now.
Pickens Iii: And she had shades on. And she was beautifully tanned. And I said to one of my old friends with a young lady who hadn’t seen me. I said, “Who that?” And he said, “That’s Pat Brannon.” I said, “Where does she live?” “Oh, she’s from way down there in Ninevah.” I said, “Well, introduce me to her.”
He said, “Oh, no. You go introduce yourself, right.” So I did. And once I confronted her, she was walkin’ along the water. I went to her and introduced myself and said, “How about a movie date?” You know, and that was it. So it was a partnership that was formed right here at the water’s edge in Sag Harbor. So I owe a lot to Sag Harbor.
Lee: I gonna say it’s amazing how much of your life is kind of intertwined and tangled with Sag Harbor. You met your wife there.
Pickens Iii: Not Brooklyn.
Lee: Your dreams.
Pickens Iii: Not from Sag Harbor. And I’m sitting there, you know, drinkin’ a beer. And I said, “Who that?” (LAUGHTER) And I found out who that was. And I married her.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: And we were married for 51 years.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: So and we’d be married 57 if she had lived.
Lee: You became an adult and married and had your kids out there. What are some of the memories you have of bringing your kids up–
Pickens Iii: Well–
Lee: –here?
Pickens Iii: –it was wonderful because our first born was a daughter, Pam. And she had her first birthday party here and second birthday party here. She’s had a party almost, because she was born June 1st. So we celebrate in Sag Harbor routinely her birthday. And my sons came out here where they were born and have enjoyed growing up out here. This is a part of their life that they don’t want to give up. Yeah, it’s central to their being.
Lee: After the break, Mr. Pickens talks about the origins of the Black community in Sag Harbor. And we also hear from his son, John. Stick with us.
Lee: We are back with William Pickens. You know, steppin’ back a little bit to go further back in history, obviously through, as you mentioned, the ’60s, the Black communities in Sag Harbor were growing, right? You all were out there a bunch. But what about Black folks in Sag Harbor, period? Like, how did we first get out there and when?
Pickens Iii: Because of the whaling industry. Whaling was the economic arm of Sag Harbor in the 1830s. You needed to have men who would be willing to go for a year and a half away from America to whale, go out to the Pacific. They had to go around South America.
There was no Panama Canal. So when you signed on a ship here, a few Blacks from Africa’s Cape Verde Islands, from Harlem, from Brooklyn, a token number became shipmates on these whaling craft. And they would be gone for 18 months. But that was really the first African presence in Sag Harbor.
So you’re going back to the 19th century. But by 1900 John Hope, the great scholar from Georgia, his wife went from Savannah, Georgia, to Sag Harbor by boat. She was going to live in New York. But she got off the boat in Sag Harbor and liked it so much that she rented a room and then built a house.
That’s how the middle class Black folk and the university folk heard about Sag Harbor, John Hope, the great scholar. And then my aunt who was a teacher heard about it. And they were friends. She was friendly with this woman, Miss Hope. Because she had taught at Tuskegee and gave her the idea. “Well, come on out,” right.
So it started very small. It wasn’t till the ’30s that more African Americans came to Sag Harbor. And there was a school teacher who taught at Brooklyn Technical High School. And he came out and built four or five little cottages for his friends. And he rented them out. And that started more volume of coming to Sag Harbor back in the ’30s. And the Depression was on. So folks weren’t takin’ fancy vacations.
Lee: Right, right.
Pickens Iii: But Sag Harbor afforded you a fishing opportunity. And they started coming out by train and boat to check it out. But you weren’t buying property then. Property was not for sale. That didn’t happen until after World War II–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: –when all this land became available.
Lee: So Sag Harbor as we understand it is on Long Island. But kind of talk to us about the Black beach communities within Sag Harbor.
Pickens Iii: Well, there are three beachfront communities. Azurest, which was the first one, that was founded in 1947 by two sisters. And it all started very innocently after World War II. The oldest land was available. And the people who owned it needed money.
Sag Harbor Hills then came along. The owners here, this family from Virginia, they owned all this property that we have here now. And he thought, “Okay, I’ll do what they’re doing in Azurest and find a lot of willing customers, if the price is right, who are African American.” So that’s how this happened. And Ninevah was, the impulse on Ninevah came through my father-in-law who helped sell the lots to all his friends. Ninevah Beach, give me 400 or 600 bucks and we can get ourselves some property.
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: And they did. The thing that made this different was that you could own the waterfront. You couldn’t do that in Oak Bluffs or Idlewild. But here you could own the bay front. You could actually own property that would guard against intrusions on the beach.
That was the fundamental difference. And that’s why the beachfront lots went, pshew, really fast. Because the men and women recognized, “Well, here’s a glorious opportunity.” We had our own beach. And that was the being difference: beachfront ownership.
Lee: Have folks in the community been able to hold onto that sense? Has it changed at all?
Pickens Iii: Well, it’s changed a little bit. But I think there’s a determination now that the families who can stay here will stay here. Because to replace this is almost impossible. It was wonderfully accessible for us. But now it’s accessible to everybody. And all we can do is guard against the encroachment by staying here and paying our bills, paying our taxes, improving our properties. That’s the only way we’re gonna survive this.
Lee: You know, what percentage of your neighbors are Black now? Like, or when I say what percentage of your neighbors are white now? Has the demographics of the place changed–
Pickens Iii: Well–
Lee: –dramatically?
Pickens Iii: –it’s changed. And in one of the communities, it’s 75/45 now white. Others, it’s 70/30. So, well, that’s about it. 70/30. But one community has gone over that.
Lee: The stakes are that high though. If you don’t hold onto it, it’ll be gone forever.
Pickens Iii: Oh, it’ll be gone forever. Once it’s gone, forget it. To buy it back, forget it. So you see that house for $100,000. And now it’s gonna cost you $3 million to buy it back. (LAUGH) It’s just–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: –insane. I mean, that’s the economics of the day. And that’s the threat. That’s a threat. There was no interest from the larger community until maybe 25 years ago. They would drive by, never turn (LAUGH) off the highway to see what’s goin’ on over here.
This was a Black enclave. Maybe they thought it was dangerous. Or maybe they thought it was a waste of time. But it wasn’t until the mid ’90s that the white population began to look at Sag Harbor as an investment opportunity. So it’s about 25 years. But the first 50–
Lee: Wow.
Pickens Iii: –hey, no problem.
Lee: You know, Mr. Pickens, I want to ask you this. Your family has been there for so long. I wonder when you reflect on it all, you know, what your hope is for your family’s legacy in Sag Harbor.
Pickens Iii: Well, first of all, I want it to continue. I’d like my children, grandchildren to continue to enjoy this place. Because it is so special and accessible. I do have some worries about the future. I feel attached to this place. And my children are attached to this place.
And that attachment is so strong that I’m sure they will resist as long and as hard as they can vacating this land. My hope is that my great, great, great grandchildren will have a shot at this place. And I just have one grandchild, right?
Lee: Yeah, oh, they gotta get to work. John–
Pickens Iii: Hello.
Lee: –you gotta get to work.
Pickens Iii: Hello. (LAUGH)
Lee: Is he right there? Is John right there?
Pickens Iii: Yeah, Johnny’s here.
Lee: Mr. Pickens’s son, John, was sitting next to him, helping with the recording. I met John on the beach in Sag Harbor ten years ago. He’s the one who hooked me up with his dad. So I got him in on the conversation.
John Pickens: What’s up, Trymaine?
Lee: What’s up, brother? How you feeling, man?
Pickens: Hangin’ in there.
Lee: Yeah, well, I want to ask you, man. Obviously, you know, talkin’ to your father about the legacy of your family out there, is it pressure on you and–
Pickens: It’s all the pressure.
Lee: –your family?
Pickens: I don’t (LAUGH) have any kids. I don’t have a wife. Like, you know, this man made miracles out here, literally. Found his wife and made a life and still had Brooklyn, still had Queens, still had Harlem in existence, and this. So now that we’re here, we’re just tryin’ to still show that it’s alive and a living place.
It’s not a dying place. You don’t come here to die. You come here to live. You come here to see your friends. You come here to run outside. You come here to take your shoes off. You come here to let your dogs run. You don’t come to hide. You come here to thrive.
Lee: When you think about, you know, your generation, the next generation, are you concerned that, you know, folks will sell off and folks will look for the money and not be able to hold onto it? Is there real concern?
Pickens: You have some like that. And but then you have other generations where their families are working hard to keep this. See, it’s different for us because it didn’t cost us. This was already given to us. We just had to maintain it. And that’s a cost in itself.
But for us, it’s maintaining our own piece of life and our own piece of liberty and our piece of justice. And this is where we found it. And this is where we’ve carved it out for everyone else. So you don’t have to come in and fight to earn these things. Because the respect is already understood. The thing about these kids, they don’t change. If you don’t change, the locks stay the same. I still have the key that my grandma had to the door because it’s the same key and the same lock. (LAUGH)
Lee: Wow. Yeah. How has growing up out there changed you?
Pickens: Well, it’s changed me in that it’s just given me a well-rounded experience. I mean, it might be somethin’ more of a privilege. But it’s an experience. It’s like bein’ able to come out and see your neighbors and know your neighbors, but how your neighbors know and see you. They have to see you out on that water enjoyin’ it. They have to see you drivin’ down the beach to know that you’re here enjoying all rights and privileges. (LAUGH)
Lee: All them.
Pickens: You’re not excluded from anything. The door is open. And the love is real. And this is God’s country. We are still in God’s country. Without freedom, there is no joy. (LAUGH) And we have found joy and freedom.
Lee: Mr. Pickens. What’s it like? When you hear your son, John, describe his experience and how much it’s meant to him, what does it mean when you hear him speak about this community that you helped kind of nurture and build?
Pickens Iii: Well, it means that it worked. (LAUGH) It means that the time and effort we put in to establish this as a viable community over the last seven decades, that that feeling has emerged in our children and then grandchildren. That boy, we are lucky. We are pretty lucky to have this in our lives. And we have to figure out a way to preserve it and nurture it. So when I hear my son, John, extol the virtues of this place, I smile.
Lee: William Pickens III lives in Sag Harbor, New York. And we always love hearing from our listeners. So don’t forget. You can tweet me #trymainelee. That’s #trymainelee, my full name. Or write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com. that was intoarmerica@nbc and the letters U-N-I.com.
Into America is produced by Isabel Angell, Allison Bailey, Bryson Barnes, Aaron Dalton, Max Jacobs, and Aisha Turner. Original music by Hannis Brown. Our executive producer is Ellen Frankman. I’m Trymaine Lee. We’ll catch you next Thursday.