Jim Crow in Savannah's Parks in the 20th Century presented by Jeffrey M. Ofgang: A Park for Our People

A Savannah streetcar ca.1906 (Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection, image ctm327-84)

With the major municipal parks off-limits to Black residents, they turned to private enterprise for help: transit companies who saw an opportunity to build ridership. The Savannah, Thunderbolt and Isle of Hope Railway Company financed and built a park and resort for Black people along its streetcar line in the West End. Segregated streetcar parks like this one became commonplace in the South in the Jim Crow era. Lincoln Park opened in Savannah on April 29, 1900. Historian Martha Keber places its original location on Augusta Road near West Lathrop Avenue. The Savannah Tribune believed the park would "be a boon to the Colored citizens, for they had no other place to go on picnics other than by steamer or pay a large amount to go on the railroads.”

Advertisement in the Savannah Morning News, August 19, 1902

The Tribune recorded dozens of events and club gatherings at the park in its early years. However, in 1907 when Savannah started enforcing a dormant state law segregating streetcars, this editorial in the Tribune of March 9 called for a boycott of the streetcars and the park owned by the streetcar company. (In the common usage of that time, the "Buzzards" in the article were Black people who submitted to Jim Crow segregation.)

The park survived at least into the 1920s at its original location and became a showcase for Black vaudeville and jazz.