Johnnie Walker remembered at annual beach day

A blue sky and a black-and-white picture of Johnnie Walker framed a special day in Lewes Sept. 14.

The third annual Johnnie Walker Beach Day was held on the sands that were named in his honor in 2021.

The goal of the day is to remember the longtime Lewes entrepreneur and businessman and raise awareness of the city’s Black legacy.

“We knew there was an invisible line between what we knew as the white beach and the Black beach right here,” said Trina Brown-Hicks, Lewes African American Heritage commissioner. “Visitors who come to the beach, they may not know this beach had that kind of history.”

Walker owned a restaurant on the site of the condo building next to the parking lot at Johnnie Walker Beach.

“It was the place to be any day or evening of the week. They had the best french fries and hamburgers,” Brown-Hicks said.

The city’s African American Heritage Commission is now leading a campaign to build a replica pavilion, like the one that was on the beach at least until the late 1960s.

The pavilion is another step toward keeping Lewes’ Black history alive.

“If we don’t continue to tell this story, who will?” said Cynthia Anderson-Clay, one of the organizers of Johnnie Walker Beach Day.

The commission has applied for a Delaware 250 grant to help fund the pavilion project. It is also looking for volunteers to help design it.

“We are looking for any engineers or people with historic knowledge in their wheelhouse to be able to support the effort,” Anderson-Clay said. 

A ground-penetrating radar study was done in January to try to find the exact location of the pavilion. The study did not find any trace of the old structure.

Brown-Hicks also said the Lewes Historical Society’s exhibit, Voices Heard: The History and Legacy of the Black Community in Lewes, will run through the end of the year at the Lewes History Museum on Adams Avenue.