BEACH, RESORT, REFUGE
Hampton History Museum honors Bayshore
Bayshore Beach was a symbol of segregation — a place where African-Americans could relax, separated by a chain-link fence from the white residents playing at Buckroe.
But Reginald Robinson of Hampton says his childhood recollections of Bayshore are of recreation, not racism.
“The years me and my mother and father went, I never even noticed the fence,” he said. “I did not know until recently that there was a fence. I didn’t pay any attention, didn’t care. What mattered to me was getting in the sand, getting in the water and trying to avoid the jellyfish.”
A lot of other local residents have similarly fond memories of Bayshore, and on Saturday they will share them and revel in them at the fourth annual “Bayshore at Buckroe Beach” event at the Hampton History Museum. The event will commemorate the 120th anniversary of the establishment of Bayshore.
Lots of photographs will be on display, with guest speakers and music, as well as an oyster and clam shucking demonstration. Mary T. Christian, longtime Hampton educator and legislator, will be honored at the event.
A raffle will be held to give away an autographed guitar from Chuck “Guitar” Chavis, a local musician who played alongside the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Otis Redding.
Robinson launched the event, along with the Hampton History Museum, in 2015 and immediately drew a standingroom crowd.
“I felt like we needed to have this event, because you never hear anything about Bayshore,” Robinson said. “I would ask black people and they didn’t remember it, but they remembered going to Buckroe. I would say, ‘No, you didn’t — you weren’t allowed to go to Buckroe. You went to Bayshore, on the other side of the fence.’ It’s confusing now, but they were two different places.”
The white beach at Buckroe had a roller coaster; the African-American beach at Bayshore had a dance hall that made it a tourist destination for guests up and down the East Coast.
Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong played there, and Redd Foxx told his offcolor jokes.
The fence came down in the mid-1960s. The three-story Bay Shore Hotel eventually closed about a decade later. Skee-ball games retrieved from that hotel before its demolition will be on display at the museum event on Saturday.
Mostly, Robinson said, it will be a night of joyful, nostalgic memories.
“I just enjoy seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they see the articles we put on display, or when they see the 1950s and ’60s bathing suits,” he said. “And the games rescued from the hotel — you see stuff you haven’t seen before, or that you haven’t seen in years.
“My earliest memories are being 4 or 5 years old and my mother would come into the living room and say, ‘You want to go to the beach this weekend?’ And I would say, ‘Heck yeah.’ There was no public pool for black people, and we couldn’t hardly go to the James River in peace without wondering what might happen. Bayshore was the only place we could go with sand and surf and water. I will never forget it.”