Arts Daily / McKenzie Beach Memories – Art by Natalie Daise

McKenzie Beach Memories – Art by Natalie Daise

Those driving on Highway 17 in the Pawleys Island area may have noticed the ruins of an old motel behind a fence and a street sign saying “Old Beach Road.” That is what is left of McKenzie Beach, once a popular and well-known vacation resort. But what made it important then was that it was a beach for African-Americans at a time when direct access to the Atlantic oceanfront in the Jim Crow South was extremely limited. Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet presents McKenzie Beach Memories – Art by Natalie Daise, an exhibition of paintings used as the illustrations for the book McKenzie Beach Memories, published by CLASS Publishing. The works are on view in the Wall Lowcountry Center through October 15th.