“In preserving Lincoln Beach’s memory, New Orleanians also envisioned a future in which Black leisure would have a place to thrive.” 

In the summer of 2023, I followed behind families toting floaties and foam coolers, trudging up an incline on the side of a levee. As I fumbled over a fence and down a ladder, the families walking ahead of me nimbly stepped over long and wide railroad tracks. In the distance, a canopy of oak trees blocked the sun, and from behind them came sounds of gentle waves and laughter. Without knowing, I walked past remnants of a boardwalk, a restaurant, and filled-in swimming pools—features that were once central to Lincoln Beach, a now-shuttered segregated beach on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans East. Near the sandy shore, boys and girls held hands while balancing on a deteriorating brick wall. Other visitors cast fishing rods from the rocky headlands flanking the beach, and kids waded joyfully into the low water under their parents’ watchful eyes. Barbecues blew out steady trails of smoke. Here, past the concrete floodwalls, grassy levees, and railroad tracks, people had created their own oasis.