Annapolis Summer Colonies and Green Book Destinations
Developed in collaboration with Maryland State Archives and Chesapeake Conservancy
Introduction to The Black Coast
In 1862 — when most of Maryland had been deforested and turned into tobacco plantations — there remained large stands of forested wetland, ponds, and lakes along the Chesapeake Bay shoreline of Annapolis Roads and Arundel on the Bay. These tracts were considered “bad land” but they were attainable for recently emancipated people, including Fred and Mary Carr. The couple purchased 150 acres for $2500 in 1905 that their enterprising daughters Mary and Florence developed as the resorts of Carr’s and Sparrow’s Beaches. Other low-lying shoreline locations were acquired during the late 19th and early 20th century by the region’s “Black Aristocracy” and developed as an extended summer home colony beginning with the establishment of Highland Beach by Charles Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, and soon followed by Bay Highlands, Arundel-on-the-Bay, Oyster Harbor, and Venice Beach, as well as the cottages along Bembe Beach just north of Carr’s Beach.
Green Book Destinations of Annapolis
A paucity of friendly venues for Black travelers was addressed at a national scale by the Green Book travel guide for Black travelers. First published in 1936, the Green Book was the brainchild of a Harlem-based postal carrier named Victor Hugo Green. Local entrepreneurs listed in the Green Book — including the Carr family — provided hospitality to the community during this time. The local Civil Rights movement to demand equal access to hospitality was accelerated by the Annapolis Five who staged the bus depot and lunch counter sit-ins in Annapolis.
Bembe Beach Road/The Moore Cottage
The current Elktonia Beach property includes a parcel where once stood a private cottage owned by Parlette Moore, president of the historically Black Coppin University. While the similar Elktonia cottages provided a respite to traveling musicians and families, the Moore cottage was a private family vacation retreat that reflected the growing prosperity and accomplishment of the region’s African American professional class. It was one of the last examples of this type of vacation cottage remaining in the area before it was torn down by the City of Annapolis.
Carr’s Sparrow’s Elktonia Beaches
In 1905 Fred and Mary Wells Carr purchased 150 acres of farmland on Bembe Beach Road and soon began inviting the community to picnic on the shoreline of their property overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Fred Carr left 150 acres to his heirs in 1928 and two of his daughters developed beach resorts on adjacent sites: Carr’s Beach and Sparrow’s Beach. In the mid-1940s a group of investors from Baltimore purchased the adjacent Eintract Club, a sports club with five cottages similar to the vacation colony cottages lining the Bembe Beach shoreline to the north and renamed their new mini-colony Elktonia, possibly reflecting an affiliation with the Black Elks lodge. (The word Eintract is an old-fashioned German word that means unity and peace.) The Baltimore high rollers incorporated as the Carr’s Beach Amusement Company and began improvements to the adjacent Black beach resort. Carr’s, Sparrow’s, and Elktonia Beaches operated through the 1950s and 1960s as one the premiere entertainment and gambling venues on the East Coast.
Highland Beach
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Oyster Harbor
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Arundel on the Bay
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Bay Highlands
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Venice Beach
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