By Megan Hayhurst, Contributing Writer
The Eisenhower Institute’s Environmental Leadership Program held five student speakers on March 30 to discuss environmental justice. The students’ research covered topics such as the history of racial barriers and public beach access.
The 5 student speakers spent a week in Florida over spring break to collect data and conduct interviews with Palm Beach County residents. Each student had a leadership day where they led the activities. Director of the Environmental Leadership Program Howard Ernst spoke on the two goals of the environmental program.
“To authentically study something…to be an expert at a higher level than everyone else knows [and the] development of these young people.”
Under the leadership of Ernst and Executive Director Tracie Potts, the students interviewed Palm Beach area residents who lived there when the beaches were segregated. One of these individuals is American Beach resident Marsha Dean Phelts. She described the beach at the time of segregation having cross-burnings to show that Black communities were not welcome. Today, historic signs stand at the once-segregated beach for tourists, yet these signs do not indicate anything about its past.
When speaking on her objective for the trip, Meghan Clark ’23 said, “[to] understand more about the formation of the segregated beach in Jupiter, Florida and [to] be able to identify its location.”
Clark and other students interviewed long-time Limestone Creek resident Avernel Matthews. Matthews explained that Jupiter Beach had cultural significance in the Black community. She described the beach as a place where her community could come together despite people of color only having a small, segregated portion of the beach. Clark emphasized the importance of sharing this history as companies continue building over historically marginalized communities such as Limestone Creek.
Casey Deck ’24 spoke on modern barriers to beach access in Juno Beach. Many individuals are prohibited from stepping on the beach due to physical barriers, parking scarcity and expenses, and beach privatization. The discussion notes that beach-front properties in this region are primarily owned by wealthy white people, yet there is little acknowledgement of past segregation in the area.
Oscar Winch ’24 said, “All of the locals who we talked to seem to avoid the subject.”
With Deck’s research, the students plan on creating a “Hidden History” project in which people can scan QR codes to show the accessibility of a beach.
Tracie Potts concluded the lecture and said, “If you are part of the Gettysburg community as an educator or as a student, this is what we do. These are the types of experiences that we provide.”
