Free the Beaches

The story of our separate and unequal America in the making, and one mans fight against it During the long, hot summers of the late 1960s and 1970s, one man began a campaign to open some of Americas most exclusive beaches to minorities and the urban poor. That man was anti-poverty activist and onetime presidential candidate Ned Coll of Connecticut, a state that permitted public access to a mere seven miles of its 253mile shoreline. Nearly all of the states coast was held privately, for the most part by white, wealthy residents. This book is the first to tell the story of the controversial protester who gathered a band of determined African American mothers and children and challenged the racist, exclusionary tactics of homeowners in a state synonymous with liberalism. Colls legacy of remarkable successesand failuresilluminates how our nations fragile coasts have not only become more exclusive in subsequent decades but also have suffered greater environmental destruction and erosion as a result of that private ownership.