Forts & Historic Sites
Here in Pensacola, we are lucky to have our own monuments to days gone past – actual structures that have witnessed the progress of history and changes in American culture.
Sacrificial Sand: Perdido Key’s Johnson Beach honors fallen American hero
I have always found the ocean to be powerfully affecting. Standing on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico and gazing out toward the horizon, it seems impossible not to be impressed by the enormity of the universe and one’s own smallness before it. There’s something about that experience that strips us down to our most basic, our most elemental. And so it seems strange to think there once was a time when, even here, Americans weren’t viewed as equal.
In the 1950s, the South was still plunged in the depths of Jim Crow. In segregated Pensacola, black Americans weren’t permitted to use the same street cars, sit at the same lunch counters or even swim at the same beaches as their white neighbors.
Johnson was awarded a Purple Heart for his sacrifice, and the Escambia County Board of Commissioners named a stretch of coastline on Perdido Key in his honor. Still, it would be several years before Jim Crow was fully dismantled and Johnson’s family was free to patronize whatever beach they chose.
A monument to the young hero was erected on the beach in 1996, and Escambia County residents honor his memory each May 2 on Rosamond Johnson Beach Day.
It doesn’t take a special observance or a metal plaque to see Johnson’s legacy, though. Visit his namesake Johnson Beach on any given day during the summer, and you’ll see people of all races enjoying the same stretch of sand — equally small before the enormity of the Gulf of Mexico — just as it should be.
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Spanish for "lost island," Perdido Key holds true to its roots as it remains a Southern sanctuary for people and wildlife of all kinds.
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