The ocean and SC’s beaches belong to all of us. It’s time to let all of us enjoy them
My family and others with ancestry of the original Gullah Geechee enslaved people have been part of the fabric of South Carolina’s coastal low country for generations.
Many of my family’s traditions, from our unique dialect to the foods we eat, are steeped in old “Geechee” ways. Fish is eaten with the head on, rice is a staple and we have a complicated yet evolving relationship with the ocean.
Starting from the original slave compounds through to the present day, limits on our access to knowledge and to coastal areas has shaped how we can actually connect with the ocean.
A legacy of fear
I have a loving respect of the ocean but many of my interactions with it have been limited by the fact that I never learned how to swim.
Like many in our community my parents feared the water, so they prevented us from stepping even a toenail into the Atlantic Ocean during our numerous Fourth of July excursions to the segregated beaches north of Georgetown.
Hundreds of years ago, plantation owners instilled this fear of water in the Gullah Geechee they had enslaved in order to discourage them from escaping down one of the many rivers that weave along the landscape or along the Atlantic coastline.
That fear lasted for generations, and segregation made it a hard habit to break.
When I was a kid we couldn’t afford swimming lessons and wouldn’t have had access to a pool even if we could. Every year we would hear about the drownings of Black youths who, like me, were never privileged with access to learn how to swim.
This perpetuated in us the same fear of water and the ocean that our parents had.
A different experience
But my sister Trena, who is a decade younger than me, had a very different experience.
Our older brother bought a house with a pool and she would spend summers over at his place, teaching herself to swim. This eventually gave her the opening to explore the ocean that I never had, and she took advantage of it.
By the 1970s local beaches had been desegregated and were available to any who could drive, bus or walk down to the waves. And Trena would try to go to them every day.
Shutting off access
But that has changed in recent years.
Even prior to COVID-19 Trena’s attempts to have a daily swim were often thwarted by beach closures or by the privatization of our coasts, which in itself is a modern form of segregation.
Instead of easy access to the local beach, she has to find some place that will let her in — or pay fees to use what was once free to all.
And for me it is yet another barrier to enjoying the ocean; even if I could swim, I would now be hard-pressed to find a place where I could easily go to do so.
And I’m not alone.
Data shows that more than half of South Carolinians in minority neighborhoods do not have easy access to parks, trails, beaches and other natural areas.
A powerful impact
Trena’s experience of the ocean is one of joy.
From her daily intake of seafood to her almost daily swims, her love of the ocean was born through immersing herself in it.
She doesn’t have to gaze upon it from the shore like I do; she can embrace it fully.
This made such an impact on me that I made sure that my daughter knew how to swim as soon as she could walk, and her relationship with the ocean is one of truly knowing it.
I still don’t wade into the water further than I can stand. But to me one of the most beautiful sights to see is the sun rising up over the Atlantic Ocean.
Make it accessible
I am hopeful that we can make the ocean accessible to all, especially young people of color, who have historically been and continue to be the most nature deprived.
Whether we do this by teaching every person how to swim or by making sure that our beaches remain publicly accessible — or better yet by doing both those things — the ocean belongs to us all.
And we should all have equal access to explore its wonders.
A married father of two, Reggie Nesbit is a native of Georgetown and currently lives in Columbia.
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 1:17 PM with the headline "The ocean and SC’s beaches belong to all of us. It’s time to let all of us enjoy them."