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Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Ocean City Beach (N.C.) Community Records #70040-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Ocean City Beach Citizens Council in February 2020 (Acc. 20200221.2).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Rebecca Stubbs and Chaitra Powell, February 2020; Anne Wells, Clare Carlson, and Jessica Venlet, March 2020

Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, February 2020

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser and Patrick Cullom, March 2024

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• African American neighborhoods--North Carolina--Topsail Island--History.
• African Americans—North Carolina
• African Americans—Pender County (N.C.)
• Beaches—North Carolina.
• Chestnut family (Ocean City, N.C.)
• Leisure—North Carolina—History—20th century
• Ocean City Beach (N.C.)--History.
• Ocean City Beach Citizens Council.
• Topsail Island (N.C.)--History.

Historic Ocean City Beach is an African American vacation community located on Topsail Island, N.C. It was conceived of by Edgar L. Yow, a white attorney, and Samuel J. Gray, an African American physician, who shared the idea that African Americans should own residential beach property. Gray, and members of another African American family, the Chestnuts of Wilmington, N.C., each bought a parcel of land on Topsail Island in the 1940s. When stock was sold and the inter-racial Ocean City Developers, Inc. Corporation was formed, the beach was divided between business and residential areas. Wade Chestnut II, who was responsible for the naming of Ocean City Beach in 1949, and his family were the first to become homeowners in this area. Chestnut and select members of the Carolina Real Estate and Builders Association promoted the vacation community to Black professionals in Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Wilmington, High Point, Fayetteville, and Charlotte. The first restaurant, Ocean City Terrace, opened in 1953 and the Wade H. Chestnut Memorial Chapel was built in June 1957. Streets were named for community family members and famous Black Americans.

Adapted from the website of Ocean City Beach Citizens Council: Our History and the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission's NC Civil Rights Virtual Tour: Ocean City Beach Community.

Ocean City Beach (N.C.) Community Records document the African American residential vacation community founded on Topsail Island, N.C., in 1949. The collection consists of anniversary programs celebrating the establishment of Ocean City Beach; maps and brochures of the island; Ocean City Courier newsletters; the Ocean City Beach Citizens Council handbook; other printed materials and newspaper clippings documenting the impact of the Chestnuts, one of the founding families of the community; and photographic prints and slides depicting Chestnut family and friends, an aerial view of the island, and scenes from the community, chiefly during the 1950s and at the 30th and 40th anniversary celebration events in 1979 and 1989. Other materials include a 1995 interview of Caronell Chestnut and a photobook of the Ocean City street sign dedication from May 2012.

• Photographs (PF-70040/1-7)
• Digital Folder (DF-70040/1)