Orange Crush beach party of today would have been unthinkable 65 years ago

By Greg Coy

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    SAVANNAH, Georgia (WJCL) — Orange Crush beach party of today would have been unthinkable 65 years ago. African Americans were not allowed on Tybee Beach. Back then, it was known as Savannah Beach. A group of organized college students dared to challenge and change the law.

They held a nonviolent protest called Wade in the Water, heroism in the face of threats and violence.

“It was a segregated beach, but because of Jim Crow laws, they were segregated, like most of the South was segregated,” said Julie Pearce of the Tybee MLK.

On Aug. 17, 1960, eleven students, most of them teenagers under the tutelage of Savannah civil rights legend W.W. Law challenged the status quo of a segregated beach more than once. One of the young activists was Morehouse Sophomore Amos Brown of the NAACP Youth Council.

“At the age of 14. I had a full baptism of being in the struggle,” Rev. Dr. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church, San Francisco, California.

Brown remembers how he and the others went to the beach to challenge Jim Crow.

“We already had our swimsuits on. And we would just do as anyone else would do. I was on the beach. Swim in the water. If you couldn’t swim, you just waded,” Brown said.

What happened next was a baptism of resistance. Someone called the police. The activists were escorted off the beach and arrested as some bystanders hurled insults and threats.

Brown said, “Yes. We were in harm’s way. There were rebel yells. Using the N-word. Get out of here, you know.”

Their protest made front-page news only in the Savannah Tribune, the area’s Black newspaper.

“We were young. We were due to time to be scared,” Brown said.

There was reason be afraid. Desegregation efforts turned violent in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, and Biloxi, Mississippi. Brown said Law had them trained by using role play. What to say and to stay on script.

“We sang songs, and one of the songs that we sang was ‘Wade in the Water.’ God’s going to trouble the water,” Brown said.

Pearce calls them heroes of their time because “they knew that coming to Tybee. There’s only one way on and there’s only one way off. They understood the hostility and animosity that they were about to face.”

More wade-ins would follow; the last known one was in July 1963. Months later, the beach would be desegregated just before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Sixty-two years after their efforts, Tybee Island erected a plaque to honor the original 11 and the others who followed.

Brown has returned to the area and will again.

“Oh, yes. Lord gives me enough stress And I’m still active. And as long as I’m able to breathe, put one foot in front of the other, and my thinking is clear and logical. I’m not going to give up,” Brown said.

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