Victoria W. Wolcott is Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She has published three books: Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit (2001), Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle Over Segregated Recreation in America (2012) and Living in the Future: The Utopian Strain in the Long Civil Rights Movement (2022). In addition, she has published articles in The Journal of American History, The Radical History Review, and the Journal of Women’s History among others. She is currently working on two book projects: an edited collection Utopian Imaginings: Saving the Future in the Present for SUNY Press’s “Humanities to the Rescue” series and The Embodied Resistance of Eroseanna Robinson: Athleticism and Activism in the Cold War Era, a microhistory of a Black Pacifist activist during the cold war.
In recent years there has been a tremendous nostalgia for urban recreation of the early and mid-twentieth century. Rarely, however, do these public depictions of the past highlight the racial exclusion on which recreation was premised. That exclusion was primarily enforced by white violence: on urban beachfronts, playgrounds, and commercial facilities like roller skating rinks and amusement parks. The incongruity of such violence coupled with images of families at play has hidden this history of racial struggle in recreational spaces, North and South. This talk will explore the history of recreational segregation and its legacy for modern America.