Free the Beaches

“A well-documented—and dispiriting—history of prejudice and inequality . . . An unsparing exposé of white supremacy among Northern elites.” —Kirkus Reviews

During the long, hot summers of the late 1960s and 1970s, one man began a campaign to open some of America’s most exclusive beaches to minorities and the urban poor. That man was anti-poverty activist and one-time presidential candidate Ned Coll of Connecticut, a state that permitted public access to a mere seven miles of its 253-mile shoreline. Nearly all of the state’s coast was held privately, for the most part by white, wealthy residents.

This book is the first to tell the story of the controversial protester who gathered a band of determined African American mothers and children and challenged the racist, exclusionary tactics of homeowners in a state synonymous with liberalism. Coll’s legacy of remarkable successes—and failures—illuminates how our nation’s fragile coasts have not only become more exclusive in subsequent decades but also have suffered greater environmental destruction and erosion as a result of that private ownership.

Winner of the Homer D. Babbidge Award, sponsored by the Association for the Study of Connecticut History

Winner of the 2019 Connecticut Book Awards, non-fiction category, sponsored by Connecticut Center for the Book

“This is a life story brimming with humanity and a great antidote to life under global capitalism, in which privatization is all the rage. Andrew Kahrl’s book is sure to have a sorely needed humanizing effect on all its readers.” —Ted Steinberg, award-winning author of Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater New York