Reviews for Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America

The average rating for Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-04-04 00:00:00 Ronald Retsch What an amazing book. I read it because I was going to interview the author for my "Welcome to Florida" podcast, and it made me wish I had read it when it first was published ten years ago. Marsha Dean Phelts has strong childhood memories of American Beach, which for decades was the only resort in Florida where African-Americans could go to the beach, but she has written something far better than a memoir. She has interviewed what seems like nearly everyone who ever owned property or even visited American Beach, and pored over all the deeds and mortgages and other business-related documents relating to its founding by the Afro American Insurance Company. Then she stitched it all together in a way that pulls the reader along, so you don't want to stop reading even when it's way past your bedtime. She covers the celebs who visited -- Zora Neale Hurston, Ray Charles, etc. -- but also the people who bussed the tables at the restaurants and grilled the fish for the beach picnics. The descriptions of all the abundant seafood that people used to pull out of the surf will make your mouth water (my Kindle was in danger of shorting out at least twice because I was drooling about the food). Her stories of bygone pleasures -- taking the bus to the beach after church, for instance -- will make you smile at the nostalgia and the innocence. But she doesn't shy away from the controversies, either. She talks about their uneasy relations with the cops, the infighting over what to do with the place once segregation ended, the plots by modern white developers to block off little American Beach and make sure its residents know they're not welcome within the lily-white gated subdivisions. I would give this book five stars except there's a section full of recipes which seemed to belong in a cookbook and not a history book. But that's my personal reaction to finding them, and not a criticism of the book overall. I'm sure some folks will be glad to get those recipes, especially the ones from people who once walked the sands of American beach and now are just a whisper in the seabreeze.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-07-15 00:00:00 Elizabeth Medley An interesting account of the development of this beach community for African-Americans in far northeast Florida. The beach was developed by an African-American insurance company and provided a gathering place for well-to-do and average black families in a time when they were not allowed on other beaches in the Southeast. It became a focus for black recreation and drew such luminaries as Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, Cab Calloway and James Brown to relax and entertain along its shores. Part history, part genealogy and part personal memoir, the book describes the happy and sad times of many of the residents through the 20th century and the slow decline as a result of the Civil Rights movement opening all beaches for blacks. For those of a culinary bent, several chapters include recipes handed down by residents of American Beach. While the book would be classified as local history, it's a microcosm of American life - both good and bad - through much of our history.