RESEARCH General History

U.S. HISTORY
Book captures drama, tension underlying black rescue unit

Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
(217) 333-2177; a-lynn@uiuc.edu

2/1/2002

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — It becomes clear early into "Fire on the Beach," the new history of the only all-black maritime lifesaving crew in the United States, that the "fire" in the title is a metaphor.

Certainly, the fire has literal meanings. It alludes, for example, to the 19th century warning and rescue practices of shooting flares and firing mortar gun-powered lifelines to ships in distress. It also refers to the act of arson waged against the crew in 1880 – its first year – when its station on Pea Island, N.C., was burned to the ground, an act of apparent spite and vindictiveness at the hands of white "surfmen."

But the fire in the title also refers to the raging racial tensions and political upheaval that surrounded the very existence of "Keeper" Richard Etheridge and his courageous men who patrolled the dangerous coast and rescued hundreds of white lives in the bright hope of Reconstruction and the dark shadows of Plessy vs. Ferguson – the Supreme Court’s "separate but equal" ruling.

The book, subtitled "Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers" (Scribner), was written by David Wright, a professor of English at the University of Illinois, and David Zoby, a professor of English at Casper College in Wyoming.

The authors used a great many archival documents, including station logs and wreck reports, correspondence, and newspaper and magazine articles, plus interviews with descendants, and, where necessary, creative license, to trace Etheridge’s remarkable odyssey and the harrowing deeds he and his crews performed while working for the Life-Saving Service, the precursor to the Coast Guard.

Vivid, sometimes poetic, writing surrounds the tales, for example: "With each step, phosphorescent organisms burst into a shimmer of illumination underfoot. His became the foot of a god walking through a field of stars." At the same time, the book resonates with lost U.S. history: "No. 17 was a place where blacks were in control of their own destinies. Not only were they included in coastal lifesaving, but they received equal pay, had comparable equipment, and were led by one of their own."

Over the course of its history, and often under ungodly circumstances, Etheridge's surfmen at Pea Island Station 17 saved 13 vessels and several hundred lives. Their finest hour was the rescue of all nine passengers from the wreck of the E.S. Newman on Oct. 11, 1896. After the schooner got lost in a storm, ran aground and keeled over on her starboard side 50 yards off the coast, the surfmen, their equipment rendered useless, swam nine trips through freezing water churning with debris to rescue the victims.

A freed slave from Roanoke Island, Etheridge forged his leadership skills in an "African Brigade" in the Civil War, and in 1880 was named keeper – or chief – of Station 17. Described as "a man among the men," he led brilliantly for 20 years – until the day of his sudden death in 1900.

During the time period, some 200 such stations dotted America’s shoreline, but Station 17, which operated from 1879-1947, was the only one to employ blacks. In 1996, the Coast Guard posthumously awarded Etheridge’s crew a Gold Life-Saving Medal.