FEATURE bathing suit for a photograph) all had stories about Paradise Park.White space to She had interviewed over 45 individuals before Lu Vickers, a professor at Tallahassee Community College, called her in 2013. A decade after she encountered the photo, Wilson-Graham published “Remembering Paradise Park: Tourism and Segregation at Silver Springs,” with Vickers in 2015. The book is stocked with interviews and collected photographs taken at the park. “Remembering Paradise Park” is just the beginning. Wilson-Graham wants the state of Florida to reopen Paradise Park at Silver Springs, and re-establish its cultural importance in the history of North Florida. efore there was Disney World there was Silver Springs—”nature’s underwater fairyland”—one of Florida’s oldest and most popular tourist attractions. Though the tourists at Silver Springs were white, their boat captains were almost all black; and though most of them grew up on the Silver River, neither they nor their families could enter or tour the park. When black people would accidentally enter the Springs, it was the boat captains who were tasked with asking them to leave. Convinced by their boat captains and eyeing the untapped economic potential of black tourism, the owners of Silver Springs bought out a competing park on the south side of the Silver River and converted it into Paradise Park in 1949. Paradise Park was open every day, free of admission. It was segregated, but it was also a safe haven for black families, who could dance, swim and picnic without worrying about antagonization from white people in a hostile era. Many racial clashes were instigated by incidents on beaches. In 1919, Eugene Williams, a black teenager, was stoned to death after he drifted to the white side of Lake Michigan, sparking race riots in Chicago. An old Paradise Park brochure advertises “Lifeguards will protect
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The photo that inspired the book. Photos courtesy of Cynthia Wilson-Graham.
the children!” in bold. “It was an oasis away from reality in a sense because once you got out there you were in a different world,” Reginald Lewis, a former lifeguard at Paradise Park, said. “It was all black. Everything there was catered to the individual.” Paradise Park was a vital force in the black community, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. It was called a “mecca for thousands of holiday celebrants” by Ebony Magazine. It was also featured in the Green Book, a 1936 guide that documented safe businesses for black people traveling in the U.S. Though busloads of tourists arrived at Paradise Park each day, there was only one black hotel in Ocala. The park manager,
is also Vereen’s grandson, and his family hid hundreds of eggs for children to find. Local churches held baptisms in the waters of Silver River. Every Christmas, Santa rode a glass-bottom boat into Paradise Park to hand out paper packages of trinkets and oranges. “That was the type of place that it was.” Lewis said. “You became lost in the beauty and the camaraderie, with the people... everything.” The most popular event was the annual Labor Day Beauty contest. Girls from all over the state vied to be crowned Miss Paradise Park. Carrier Parker Warren was one of those girls. She was one of three generational beauty queens: Her mother placed at the
“That was the type of place that it was. You became lost in the beauty and the camaraderie, with the people...everything.” Eddie Vereen, was tasked with finding visitors places to sleep within churches and homes in the local community. Eddie Vereen was a boat captain at Silver Springs and a well-respected, religious man in the community. He was determined to make Paradise Park just as nice as Silver Springs. Every Monday after Easter, Lewis, who
first-ever competition. “Paradise Park for that period in our lives was something that was very positive,” she said. “We should keep it alive and keep it a part of history. I don’t see how you can talk about Silver Springs, and in your next breath, Paradise Park doesn’t come out.” She hopes to see Paradise Park reopen, with a museum on the premises.