I’m at the premiere Negro resort of the Midwest. At least it was.

Idlewild is a small community just east of Baldwin. In the days of Jim Crow, this was one of the few places in the country where middle-class African-Americans could come without facing discrimination, and even own property. Not coincidentally, it became a Mecca for jazz and blues musicians. Louis Armstrong and W.E.B. DuBois owned property here. The name itself is so evocative, it sounds like something out of fiction. It was known as “Black Eden”.

But the silver cloud of desegregation had a grey lining: now that they could go (generally) anywhere, African-Americans no longer needed places like Idlewild, and it has become just another rural village in northern Michigan. Most of the roads were never paved, and the houses were generally small and cheaply made. There’s new construction here too, and a nice little park for public access to crystal-clear Idlewild Lake (where I’m sitting now). There are signs up celebrating the community’s centennial this year.

A little like the dams, I wouldn’t have made this trip just to come here. By coincidence I learned of Idlewild about a month ago, then noticed that it was along the route of this ride. Like the Womyn’s Music Festival or the gay resorts in Saugatuck, it’s not the sort of thing one expects to find around here. But here it is.

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