{"title":"Lu Vickers","description":"Lu Vickers is the author of Cypress Gardens, America's Tropical Wonderland: How Dick Pope Invented Florida and the novel Breathing Underwater. She is coauthor of Weeki Wachee Mermaids: Thirty Years of Underwater Photography. Cynthia Wilson-Graham is an educator and lecturer, whose advocacy was instrumental to the installation of a historical marker by the Bureau of Historic Preservation at the former entrance to Paradise Park.","products":[{"product_id":"remembering-paradise-park-tourism-and-segregation-at-silver-springs-hardcover","title":"Remembering Paradise Park: Tourism and Segregation at Silver Springs - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmerican Library Association \"Best of the Best of the University Presses\"\u003c\/b\u003e \"A strange and unsettling glimpse of the land of sun and surf in the waning moments of segregation in the South.\"--Gilbert King, author of \u003ci\u003eDevil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"A testament to the efforts of a black community determined to provide wholesome recreation for their families in a segregated society. This masterpiece of local history changes the way we think about the history of tourism and civil rights.\"--Susan Sessions Rugh, author of \u003ci\u003eAre We There Yet?: The Golden Age of American Family Vacations\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"The story of Florida tourism has been told in many ways, but this book gives a perspective that has been missing from most of them. Vickers and Wilson-Graham finally open the gates to Paradise Park so that all are welcome to sample its wonders.\"--Tim Hollis, author of \u003ci\u003eSelling the Sunshine State: A Celebration of Florida Tourism Advertising\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"An invaluable time capsule. This bittersweet book vividly describes the joys of Paradise Park, while acceptance and endurance of racist practices are also remembered and voiced.\"--Marsha Dean Phelts, author of \u003ci\u003eAn American Beach for African Americans\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Paradise Park was the \"colored only\" counterpart to Silver Springs, a central Florida tourist attraction famous for its crystal-clear water and glass bottom boats. Together the two parks comprised one of the biggest recreational facilities in the country before Disney World. From 1949 to 1969, boats passed each other on the Silver River--blacks on one side, whites on the other. Though the patrons of both parks shared the same river, they seldom crossed the invisible line in the water. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Full of vivid photographs, vintage advertisements, and interviews with employees and patrons, \u003ci\u003eRemembering Paradise Park \u003c\/i\u003eportrays a place of delight and leisure during the painful era of Jim Crow. Racial violence was at its height in Florida--the famous Groveland rape case happened right as Paradise Park opened--and many African Americans saw the park as a safe place for families. It was a popular vacation spot for the area's black community, one of the most cohesive and prosperous in the South. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Tracing the color line through Florida's most famous spring, this book compares the park to other tourist destinations set aside for African Americans in the state and across the country. Though Silver Springs was Florida's only attraction to operate a parallel facility for African Americans, Paradise Park has been just a whisper in the story of Florida tourism until now. \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51368476803295,"sku":"9780813061528","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/FwfsX-lUMB9780813061528.webp?v=1789128495"},{"product_id":"weeki-wachee-mermaids-thirty-years-of-underwater-photography-hardcover","title":"Weeki Wachee Mermaids: Thirty Years of Underwater Photography - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eBy the late 1940s, long before Disney dreamed of building a magic kingdom in central Florida, the state had more botanical gardens, jungles, monkeys, parrots, and glass-bottomed boats than a tourist could shake a camera at. But only one place had banana-eating mermaids, and that was Weeki Wachee.\u003cbr\u003e Located about forty-five miles north of Tampa, and still in existence today, Weeki Wachee has been featured in major motion pictures and visited by astronauts, movie stars, and Elvis Presley. Like everyone else, they came to see the famous mermaids--in actuality, highly trained swimmers and divers.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWeeki Wachee Mermaids \u003c\/i\u003efeatures rare, never-before-published vintage photographs, postcards, and publicity shots taken over a thirty year period, starting with the first performance in 1947 and ending with the extravagant \"underwater Broadway\" shows created by the corporate owners of ABC-TV. The water was so clear, and the scenarios so cleverly straightforward that audiences initially doubted that the show was really underwater, and newspaper editors across the country suspected the photographs might be fake.\u003cbr\u003e Lu Vickers's accompanying text retraces the origins of the attraction, particularly the ways that entrepreneur and underwater photography pioneer Newt Perry set Weeki Wachee apart from all the other springs in Florida. Coauthor Bonnie Georgiadis, who was in junior high when the park opened, eventually worked thirty-seven years at the park, first as a mermaid, later as a choreographer, and eventually as a falconer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51378191106271,"sku":"9780813044309","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/sRPppuKDW89780813044309.webp?v=1789250812"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/lu-vickers.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}