Sea Breeze Inheritance
In the New Hangover area of Wilmington NC is a place called Sea Breeze. Historically Sea Breeze was a coastal vacation spot formed in 1885 for Black and Native Americans. It was a vacation spot but also a safe haven for traveling people of color during Jim Crow. Sea Breeze was known for its music, seafood, and beach. (though the beach was only open to Black people on Mondays due to segregation). I come from families of Sea Breeze; the Bozemans and the McQuillans. The McQuillans come from a long line commercial fishermen who provided fish, shrimp, clams, and more to the local seafood restaurants. Sea Breeze thrived until 1954 when Hurricane Hazel destroyed the establishments that made up the Sea Breeze coast. Given the black population of the area no city, state, or federal aid was provided to rebuild. Many of the inhabitants of the area were forced to abandon their businesses, homes, and land. Others, like my family, stayed and watched Wilmington change around them. They stayed as the city tried to forget them, erase their history, and sometimes push them off their land. Only recently have attempts been made to salvage some history and culture from Sea breeze; usually for a more commercial purpose. This artwork depicts the aging image of my maternal grandfather Luther McQuillan; a 91 year old commercial fisherman. He witnessed and adapted after the fall of Sea Breeze and the changes that it, as well as the “development” of Wilmington, brought to his industry. There is a hierarchy in Southern history of what is recorded, revered, and prioritized.
There are large gaps between what happened in Black American history from reconstruction and the civil rights era. Places like Sea Breeze fill those gaps. For Black Southerners there is often a narrative pushed on us that we came from nothing but there are fragments of spoken history that we have inherited a living history.
