Summertime and the livin’ is easy…crooned Ella Fitzgerald on the 1959 “Porgy and Bess” album co-created with Louis Armstrong, but for Black families at that time, summertime was anything but easy. What was usually considered to be a season of fun and care-free living for others, was one filled with anxieties and desperate maneuverings to find safe spaces where they too could carve out moments of joy and relaxation in a country where they often were excluded. Thankfully, historically Black beach enclaves like Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Sag Harbor, New York; American Beach, Florida and Idlewild, Michigan have been destinations of coastal fun to Black families for decades, while other sites in major cities provide places to dance, sing, and celebrate Black artistry.

Here are five sites across the country—funded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund—where Black joy is, and has always been, a priority.

Casa Blanca Hotel (Idlewild, Michigan)

Colloquially known as ‘Black Eden’ the resort town of Idlewild in Michigan’s northwestern Lower Peninsula was a thriving lakeside haven for middle class Black families during Jim Crow. Initially established in 1912 by white investors who purchased 2700 acres of land and promoted it as a Black resort town, Black residents quickly took the lead in shaping the town’s personality. They picnicked, went fishing and swam in the lake’s clear waters, and many stayed at the Casa Blanca Hotel, the biggest hospitality venue in Idlewild. In addition to vacationers, the hotel drew well-known entertainers who both performed and stayed there, including the Supremes, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dinah Washington, and Della Reese.

Unfortunately, after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, visitation to Idlewild and the Casa Blanca Hotel declined. The property stood vacant for many years until 1st Neighbor, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established by Black women educators, Dr. Ida Short and Ms. Betti Wiggins, stepped in to restore the property to that of its heyday. The team received a $100,000 capital project grant from the Action Fund in 2023 to go towards stabilizing the Hotel Casa Blanca and securing its structural integrity, helping to lay the foundation for the hotel’s anticipated reopening in 2026.

The Lincoln Theatre (Los Angeles, California)

Black artistry of the 1920s tends to be centered on the Harlem Renaissance, but there was just as much vibrancy on the West Coast. The center of it all was the Lincoln Theatre on Central Avenue in south Los Angeles. Opened in 1927, the theater became a social, cultural and political hub for Los Angeles’ Black population through live theater, concerts, talent shows, speeches and motion pictures. Musicians including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and the Nat King Cole Trio all performed there, helping to cement the theater’s nickname as the “Apollo of the West” after the popular theater in Harlem. Today, the Moorish Revival architectural style building is the last remaining theater in Los Angeles that catered specifically to the Black community.

In December 2020, the Coalition for Responsible Community Development acquired the theater with the intention of restoring it as a space for live performances, community events, and arts training, in addition to building 72 units of affordable housing and permanent supportive housing built on the adjacent lot. A $75,000 grant from the Action Fund will assist the organization in planning work to restore this historically significant West Coast Black performance space.

Elktonia Beach Heritage Park (Annapolis, Maryland)

Elktonia Beach, a 5-acre waterfront parcel along the Chesapeake Bay, is the last remnant of the original 180-acres of farmland purchased in 1902 by formerly enslaved veteran Frederick Carr. Under the stewardship of his daughters, Elizabeth Carr Smith and Florence Carr Sparrow, the sisters transformed the land into the celebrated Carr’s and Sparrow’s beaches, a Green Book-listed resort area where generations of Black Americans found respite from the grips of segregation from the 1930s to 1970s. The beaches were also a hotbed of entertainment in the Mid-Atlantic region, with artists including The Temptations, Ella Fitzgerald, and James Brown performing onstage at Carr’s Beach.

Elktonia Beach, the last remaining portion of the original 180-acre property, will become the newly expanded Elktonia-Carr’s Beach Heritage Park, managed by the City of Annapolis Department of Recreation and Parks, and the new headquarters for the Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation. The foundation received a $50,000 grant from the Action Fund to develop a comprehensive master plan to incorporate storytelling components of the area’s Black history, as well as a coastal and shoreline restoration plan.

Eldorado Ballroom (Houston, Texas)

Houston’s Third Ward is one of the most historic and culturally rich Black neighborhoods in the country. Created shortly after Houston’s founding in 1836, it’s also the home of historically Black college Texas Southern University and Emancipation Park, a 10-acre park purchased by three formerly enslaved men. Just across from Emancipation Park stood the Eldorado Ballroom, a premier music venue and nightclub that billed itself as the “Home of Happy Feet”. From 1939 until the early 1970s, you were sure to find arms and legs swinging on the dance floor to the sounds of Ray Charles, Duke Ellington and T-Bone Walker, all of whom performed there.

By 1970, the venue was in decline due to desegregation and left mostly vacant. In 1999, it was acquired by Project Row Houses a nonprofit arts and community service organization determined to restore the Eldorado as a performance venue, archive and meetings site. In 2023, after a $9.7 million renovation with a portion of those funds raised from a 2022 $100,000 grant from the Action fund, the Eldorado reopened to much fanfare. The ground floor now features a café and local market, a working artists’ gallery and community and meeting spaces. Upstairs, Lucille’s 1913 offers the ballroom as a venue for live music, dancing, and celebrating.

Karamu House (Cleveland, Ohio)

Karamu House, the oldest theater in the nation producing African American works, was a magnet for some of the most important Black artists of the 20th century including Ruby Dee and Zora Neale Hurston. Dancers, actors, printmakers and writers all roamed the halls of the playhouse settlement perfecting their crafts, including poet and playwright Langston Hughes, who spent his high school years in Cleveland. Karamu House played such an important role in Hughes’ life, that he wrote and debuted several plays there, including his very first play, “The Golden Piece,” in 1921.