From Civil Rights to Climate Change: Reparative Environmental History at the Beach

• In Event: Lightning Session II

Abstract

This lightning talk will provide an overview of reparative environmental history at one contested locale: the beaches of Southern California. Sold as destinations for tourist leisure and resident recreation, beaches were actually focal points of racial and class conflict, sites of exclusion for many of the diverse residents of Southern California. These beaches lie at the intersection of recreational, reparative, and civil rights history.

In this talk I will discuss the challenges of uncovering this history of exclusion in a state where Jim Crow-style segregation was officially illegal, leading to covert segregation and racial exclusion achieved through homeowners associations, restrictive covenants, and “stealth” segregation pursued by local governments. Then I will discuss 21st-century efforts to gain access to beaches and other recreational space, making these natural places of leisure open to all. This includes initiatives as varied as legal challenges, the creation of more public recreational space, and even apps offering directions to beach access points via smartphone. Finally, I will talk about an emerging challenge to this process—climate change. Despite successes, rising ocean levels and beach erosion threaten gains to beachfront recreational space. Though beaches are public property under state law, the power of wealthy homeowners to dictate policy may mean that the beaches of Southern California will disappear, lost beneath surging ocean waves held back by sea walls protecting oceanfront real estate. How will reparative environmental history address – or be rendered irrelevant by – climate change?

The goal is a lightning talk addressing the core theme of the 2020 ASEH conference, and offering avenues of inquiry and dialog with a wide range of approaches and issues within reparative environmental history. In keeping with this emphasis, it will adhere to the five minute time limit and include no more than ten PowerPoint slides.

Author

• Lawrence Culver, Utah State University