Beyond the Breeze: How Black Families made Summer Count
An African American boy eating ice cream outside
Summertime is often imagined in snapshots of freedom—melting popsicles, laughter echoing through neighborhood streets, and the warm blur of endless afternoons. But in the stories of eight HistoryMakers, summer meant more than leisure. It was a season where innocence met reality, where opportunity and inequity lived side by side, and where Black families carved joy and purpose out of circumstances shaped by history. In their recollections, summer becomes a powerful backdrop for ambition, resilience, and awakening.
Derek Ferguson, a business executive, remembered how summers shaped his professional path.
"The first two summers I didn't really, wasn't really successful in getting internships, the ones I wanted. Junior year I did an internship through a program called SEO... I worked for Coopers and Lybrand that summer and ended up getting a job offer from them... I always had dad if I needed to, but I really didn't do that during the summers."
Ferguson’s words echo a shift in opportunity—the move from relying on family labor to pursuing structured professional experiences, reflecting a generation gaining new access to corporate spaces.
Meanwhile, Carol Sutton Lewis offers a childhood lens on summer travel.
"We would spend some part of the summer making our way to San Antonio... Once we took a train from New York to California to visit my aunts... And there was enough room in the back [of the Eldorado] for my brother and myself and the dog, and we would just—we'd put our pajamas on... We'd drive straight through."
But with age came perspective: "What I now know is that they were trying to get through places where they would not be welcomed to stop." Her family’s whimsical road trips masked a calculated navigation of a segregated country—summer fun underlined by adult vigilance.
An image of an African American family on a family road trip
Robert F. Smith’s recollection adds another layer of rhythm to Black childhood summers. “You get up in the mornings, 7:00 o'clock, and you go down to the 'Y' for swim lessons... Then you'd get on your bike... and you'd have tennis lessons... And then you go back to the YMCA for free swim... And then you go home. And you do that every day.” Summer here wasn’t just freedom—it was structure, a community-built system of growth, of keeping Black children safe, occupied, and learning.
John Finney recalls the shift in opportunity that comes with entering college: "The summer after my junior year, I worked as an intern at IBM... I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to go back to cleaning up my dad's stores." Like Ferguson, Finney represents the transition between generations—between survival jobs and careers with long-term potential.
Derek Ferguson’s experience at Coopers and Lybrand mirrors Finney’s: both men stepping into internships that marked the beginning of long-term careers, both recalling earlier summers of missed chances or hard work in their fathers’ businesses. Their stories are like a baton pass, showing how opportunity slowly expanded for young Black men.
Clarence Waldron, a journalist, brings in the reality of being a teenager during a time of great unrest. "That summer was hard for me... It was when Martin Luther King was killed, and we just couldn’t understand why. Everything felt different." His summer was not marked by travel or internships, but by a dawning awareness of injustice—a contrast to Ferguson’s professional ascent and Lewis’s road trips.
Jack Johnson, the former County Executive of Prince George’s County, finds joy in his summer memory: "We would go swimming in the creek... Then go crabbing... and then we'd cook it, and eat the crabs... Then ride down to the dock to wait for our fathers to come in with their catch of the day." It was freedom of movement, of play, of community—but rooted in a space that knew its own boundaries.
Crisfield Crab Pickers , 1950
Together, these voices sketch a fuller picture of Black summer. They speak to one another in waves—Carol Sutton Lewis’ story of avoiding hotels connects with Waldron’s sense of societal threat, while Robert F. Smith’s structured YMCA days align with Jack Johnson’s free-roaming crabbing adventures, both shaped by a communal desire to create safe spaces.
Summertime, then, wasn’t simply a season. It was a rite of passage. A mirror of the world’s limitations—and of family’s unrelenting creativity in making space for joy, ambition, and protection. In these HistoryMakers’ stories, summer is the background for self-discovery, quiet rebellion, and the passing down of lessons—told in the voices of those who lived them, and still live with them today.
Citations:
Derek Ferguson (The HistoryMakers A2023.095), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, July 6, 2023, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Derek Ferguson recalls his early summer internships and career development.
Carol Sutton Lewis (The HistoryMakers A2023.122), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, August 1, 2023, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 2, Carol Sutton Lewis remembers road trips and the unspoken dangers of traveling Black in the South.
Robert F. Smith (The HistoryMakers A2022.010), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, February 9, 2022, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Robert F. Smith describes his structured summer routines as a child.
John Finney (The HistoryMakers A2023.096), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, July 6, 2023, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 2, John Finney recounts his summer internship at IBM and the impact it had on his future.
Clarence Waldron (The HistoryMakers A2023.091), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, July 5, 2023, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 5, Clarence Waldron shares his memory of the summer following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
Jack Johnson (The HistoryMakers A2023.127), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, August 2, 2023, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Jack Johnson describes his childhood summer activities in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
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