Letter to the Sun Editor re: Flamingo and Jim Crow Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 28, 2007:

Segregation is also Ocean City's legacy

The Sun's article on the heyday of Ocean City's Flamingo Hotel in the 1950s and 1960s failed to note that the families who lodged there during Ocean City's Jim Crow decades were all white ("Families flock to Flamingo," June 24).

Ocean City's "Motel Row" and the boardwalk itself enforced strict policies against the presence of black Americans.

For many years - until Congress passed and enforced anti-discrimination laws - only one hotel in Ocean City, "Henry's Colored Hotel," served black visitors.

Many Sun readers would want to know that black residents of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and the Lower Eastern Shore were unable to lodge at the Flamingo or enjoy the boardwalk for many decades.

That fact is part of the "family atmosphere" of Ocean City, to some extent, even to this day - among Maryland black families who have not forgotten this history.

Bruce Godfrey
Reisterstown