Joe Lindsey, 85, long time resident of Idlewild, recounted stories from his more than 50 years living in the area. Photo by Kevin Howell
By Kevin Howell
Looking for a story in anticipation of Black History Month, and knowing Idlewild has a place in that history, I turned to Lake County Historical Society researcher Bruce Micinski for names of folks I might contact.
Joe Lindsey, Bruce told me, was a good person to talk to.
Lindsey is approaching 85 and moved to Ludington in the mid-1960s. I met him at his place in Idlewild where he still owns several properties, including the former Wilson home built in 1927.
Originally from Mississippi, he made his way north, like many others during that time. He said it was his dry-cleaning business that brought him, and he spent 53 of his 55 years in business as the owner of Blue Ribbon Dry Cleaners in Ludington.
He said he was the city’s first black business owner and most of his employees were white, but that didn’t affect how he ran his operation or, for that matter, how he got along in a mainly white community.
“I had no problem with it in the ’60s because I had worked for a company out of Cincinnati before I come here,” Lindsey said. “I worked in neighborhoods that I had no problem with going into all-white at all.”
Lindsey told me he developed his own philosophy that he has followed for most of his life.
“When I went to Ludington, I had been groomed. I had worked in some of the richest neighborhoods with all white, no blacks, and I had been taught, I had learned on my own, if you’re in a business you do one thing. You’re there to take care of your business and not give a hoot about other people’s business.”
He wasn’t familiar with Idlewild when he moved to Ludington in 1965. It was through the owner of the Paradise Club that he learned of the Black resort.
“(Arthur) Braggs was running the Paradise Club,” Lindsey said. “He’s the one who used to bring the shows, used to call all over the world to get the best shows. He was the one who got me interested because I was up there (Ludington) and he kept asking me, ‘You ever go to Idlewild, Michigan?’ So, I come down here and fell in love with it, and I’ve been here since.”
By 1967, the Lindseys had moved to Idlewild and became fixtures in the community.
Lindsey focused on taking care of business, working hard at it, as he and his wife Fredna, Idlewild’s postmaster for more than 30 years, raised their family. He also worked weekends bartending at the Paradise Club and served as the assistant fire chief for Yates Township.
Idlewild, an African American Resort
Joe Lindsey witnessed the period in the late’60s, early’70s, when Idlewild began to fade. However, before the civil rights movement, things in Idlewild were much different.
Mary Trucks, executive director of FiveCAP in Scottville, also oversees the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center.
“African Americans were in Lake County before what’s known as Idlewild was developed,” Trucks told me. “They came here and worked in the community, the lumber mills that existed in Lake County.”
That was from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, when the greater part of the forests were cut for timber, leaving a lot of land available for other uses.
Ironically, it was four white men ⸺ Alvin Wright, Adelbert Branch, Erastus Branch and Wilbur Lemon ⸺ who developed the idea of a resort for African Americans.
“(It was) at a time when racism created what was known as Jim Crow laws and all kinds of restrictions of who could live where and go where,” Trucks said. “Obviously, there were African Americans not only in northwest Michigan but throughout Michigan and the Midwest who were affected by these laws and were restricted where they could go to live, to school.”
So, Idlewild was the result of a for-profit economic venture by the men who acquired the land initially and developed it to make money, according to Trucks. The developing resort encompassed about 2,700 acres, and the Idlewild Resort Company, sold it in lots to African Americans.
Idlewild was becoming a true community and a haven of sorts, a place of safety during times of racial troubles, according to Trucks. For example, in the early 1900s ⸺when Idlewild was first being developed and before its fame for great music venues came about in the ’40s, ’50s and’60s ⸺an influx of African Americans from the south led to race riots and deaths of African Americans, a period Trucks described as a “red summer.”
“It was an economic engine as well for Lake County,” she said. “It was a community with everything from undertakers to funeral homes, dressmakers, hairdressers, the grocery stores and gas stations. So, it was economically a thriving community with schools and churches.”
Idlewild attracted both summer vacationers and year-round residents. Black bankers, Black churches, Black investors, including folks such as Madame C.J. Walker, invested in Idlewild and helped it grow.
“It became an entertainment draw as an evolution,” Trucks explained. “What do we do now? We fished all day, played all the cards we could play, so it was a natural evolution.”
Great entertainment brought whites and Blacks alike to Idlewild to listen to musicians and entertainers such as Bill Cosby, when he was starting out, Cab Calloway, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, Step and Fetch-it, Lionel Hampton and B.B. King.
“You name it, they came to Idlewild,” Trucks said. “Temptations made records up here. Sara Vaughn. Four Tops. Stevie Wonder. Joe Louis was a regular. Satchel Paige.”
Idlewild also had numerous listings in the Green Book, published by Harlem postman Victor Hugo Green.
The Green Book provided black travelers with a guide to hotels, restaurants, service stations, and other facilities where they would be welcomed in the era of Jim Crow and “sundown towns.” (From a description of “The Green Book: Guide to Freedom”, a documentary film by The Smithsonian Channel which was shown this month at the Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts in Manistee.)
Civil rights and Idlewild’s decline
Then came the civil rights bill of the early ’60s, leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Joe Lindsey’s time, and things in Idlewild began to fade.
“The civil rights movement up here, it wasn’t the same thing like in (a lot of places), wasn’t no problem or anything, but the only thing that happened up in Idlewild, after the civil rights movement came, people vanished, they left, (and) that’s when it started going down,” Lindsey recalled.
“People started going places they hadn’t been able to go before,” he added. “Integration built that pace; I said all the time, that’s what happened to Idlewild.
“When they passed the bill, people had been wanting to go places, they had money to go places, but they didn’t let them (before), so they said, ‘Hell, let’s venture out (and) see what’s happening.’ I don’t blame them.”
Lindsey bought abandoned properties and acquired the former Wilson Grocery, one of the main grocery stores in the earlier years. The Paradise Club faded and was torn down, and Lindsey bought that property as well.
He re-sold some of the houses as new people came in, and has plans for the old grocery building and the Paradise Club property ⸺ now called Lindsey’s Park ⸺ next to it.
He wants to help revitalize Idlewild and rents out the Paradise property and Wilson storefront for festivals, summer concerts in the park, and camping.
Marshalean Garrett, a friend of Joe’s who came with him when we met, is helping to organize Joe’s ideas.
“We always do Juneteenth (a federal holiday marking emancipation of slaves on June 19, 1865) here,” Garrett explained. “And there’ll be a calendar of events online, we hope. Mr. Lindsey does this wonderful thing on weekends for the community in the summer; it’s Sunday in the Park. Just bring a picnic basket, sit on the lake and talk to people that come up … it’s just community.”
Lindsey will also offer limousine golf cart tours of Idlewild.
“(It’s) something to get people more interested and see more things, rather than try to ride around and figure things out for themselves.”
He wants to see Idlewild come back, not just for African Americans but for everybody who wants to be a part of the community.
“I hope the young people step up to the plate to keep it going, (that) everybody (will) work together.
“This is known as a black community because that’s what it was in the beginning, but that can’t continue going that route because families are so mixed up now ⸺ that can be a great thing.”
For more about Lindsey’s Park and golf cart tours, call 310-677-1238. Email Lake County Historical Society at lakecountyhistory@hotmail.com with questions about Idlewild, or visit the Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center website: www.historicidlewild.org.
Kevin Howell lives in Mason County. He loves the Michigan woods, lakes, people and, especially, Michigan craft beers – not necessarily in that order!
