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Meanwhile about 700 miles west of the borscht belt, soulful rhythm blues rippled across
cool lake waters of Idlewild Michigan.
This popular African American resort just north of grand rapids was the perfect place
to be idle and wild. The black entertainers came here and many of them were just starting out.
like Delorecess, 4 tops, and we went out almost every night.
Gladius Chip Chase was 16 in 1925 when she first came to Idlewild
on a field trip with a group of teenagers. Ema Jean Clark nearly 25 years
hear junior visited with her aunt and uncle in the late 30's and Ann Hawkins
has always been there. My mother and father meet here and I guess that was in about 1922 or 23
they say I was conceived here and I have come every summer since that time
Decades later all 3 are still neighbors in Idlewild.
During the first half of the century, African Americans were not welcome
at most resorts, motels, restaurants, and rest stops.
So you would stop the sheriff or police men say I'd like to catch just few hours sleep,
thats what my people would say and we'll be parked here in the square in the heart
of the city. When we would leave Detroit, there was always a lunch packed, Something
to drink and we never really stopped along the way. Thats why alot of African Americans
begin to decide they want to form there own vacation communities
where they wont have to face those kinds of unpleasant racist encounters.
Road trips often ended in Safe Heaven like Highland beach near minneapolis maryland,
Where the son of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass brought his family in
1890, Oakbluffs and Marthas vineyard near Cape Cod and Idlewild
A group of white men found at Idlewild, entrepreneur looking to cash in on the need
for a black vacation get away. In 1912 the resort developers acquired nearly
3000 acres of pine trees and spring fed lakes in Michigan. They offered small
plots to African American buyers for $35 a piece, at $6 down and $1 a week
affordable for middle class families. They wooed black people by saying, dont you want a resort
there was something appealing about a place to be able to go in the summers
and have a quality of opportunity to do the things that everybody
in this world so to speak had an opportunity to do.
That opportunity to some of the most inflectional African Americans of the day.
Including novelist Charles Chessnut, and Civil Rights leader W.E.B Du Bois.
Word of Idlewild spread quickly, soon black folks from all social classes traveled long distances
to claim their own bit fresh air and sunshine.
They'd come from everywhere, Georgia, everywhere in the United States, California, New York. Over the years
the first rustic shelters, Canvas tents and wood planked platforms became one room
bungalows, affectionately called doghouses.
Then the doghouses grew to full fledged summer homes.
In 1938, Gladius Chipchase, her husband Chip, and Aunt Pearl are looking for a cottage in Idlewild
Pearl took a fancy to a ramshackle place on a hilltop overlooking Paradise lake
a real fixer-upper. And she would have little Tiffinity just sitting on stilts
and I said i dont want that thing, and I came back again and she says
come on up here, we got out of the car and went up there
and there was this gorgeous sunset, and i said to her
lets buy this sunset, it was just so beautiful.
And they did, with the purchase of the sunset came the one room cottage
and a rigidity outhouse. Gladius put her father to work sprucing it up
They lined it with linoleum, pretty colors and what not
it was the prettiness outhouse in Idlewild
Soon as the sun rose over Idlewild, kids pored out of the cottages to gather by the lakes of
what became known as Black Eddin. Daytime in Idlewild
meant a dip in the lake or a round of golf.
The real action started at night. At the center of it all, a simple clubhouse
a place for older sisters met dates, the jukebox crew and the audience preformed
Every night, whatever Even Chicago night, the enterdity from Chicago, they could a number
well that was the Cabery the showfer that night, do you remember that?
And that was before your time. then in the late 40's and early 50's
Ziggy Johnson, Chicago talent booker brought Dazl and Flash to Idlewild nightlife.
The shows they would have at the paradise had very tall statues ladies with beautiful beautiful
tall head gears, and then we had an afterhours spot called Elmorocko and that was over in the woods
and we'd go over there and stay tell about 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning.
Relative unknowns like Refa Franklin and Dino Washington, on there way to gigs in Chicago or Detroit
would pop in for a couple of sets at a Idlewild club.
Another up and coming young singer jammed the night away with moody brand of blues
people called him blues boy, BB King.
His music was so loud and my aunty called up over there at paradise club and says
your music is to loud for me, I came up here to rest, BB invited Aunt Pearl to join the party
As the story goes Aunt Pearl declined the offer. By 1959 Idlewild was
by far the biggest African American resort in the country, besides private cottages
the grounds included 3 hotels, 26 motels and 4 clubs
More than 10 thousand people called Idlewild home during the summer months
and that number doubled on the big holiday weekends.
But by the 1960s Changing times took there tolls on black eddin
Ironically the end of segregation brought the end of Idlewild, specially after passage of the civil rights act of 1964
African Americans started to enjoy the freedom formerly whites only vacation destinations like Las Vegas and Florida
or just somewhere closer to home in Michigan.
Back in New York many Jewish families who had frequented the Cats
Skills year after year, stopped going when they no longer needed
to drive for hours to cool off. They had invented Air conditioners at that time or
we were wealthy enough to afford one, so some of the orginal
impetuous for getting us out of the city were no longer there. In a way the decline of these resorts
signaled a more tolerant nation, as families of all races began to vacation
side by side, but there passing also meant the end of era
when family vacation meant much more to your family
it meant community.