Continuing our series focusing on the contributions of historically under-recognized groups to conservation and environmental sciences, this month we are featuring MaVynee Betsch, known in Northeast Florida as “The Beach Lady” for her efforts to protect and preserve American Beach on Amelia Island in Nassau County.

MaVynee Betsch was born in Jacksonville in 1935 to one of the preeminent Black families in the south. Her great grandparents were A.L. Lewis, a leading businessman, civic leader, and philanthropist, and Mary Kingsley Sammis, the great granddaughter of plantation owner Zephaniah Kingsley and his wife Anna Madgigine Jai, Kingsley’s former slave. A.L. Lewis was one of the co-founders of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, the first insurance company in the state of Florida, and went on to become Jacksonville’s first Black millionaire. The town of American Beach was founded by the insurance company under the direction of Mr. Lewis in the 1930s as an oceanside retreat for Black notables as well as middle-class families, who were not free to visit just any beach in the Jim Crow south.

Ms. Betsch studied voice and piano at the Conservatory at Oberlin College and moved to Europe following her graduation in 1955, where she sang lead roles for the German State Opera and other companies. She returned to Jacksonville in 1962 and began to study and promote conservation and protection of the environment, donating her life savings to a variety of environmental causes, especially those involving wildlife like right whales, loggerhead turtles, and monarch butterflies.

In the 1970s, she made it her life’s mission to protect American Beach from development, fighting many battles to preserve the dunes that protect the beach from erosion, especially the 60-foot Nana dune (named by Betsch herself), which she successfully lobbied to become the property of (and forever protected by) the National Park Service. Through her tireless efforts, American Beach was also placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and she also developed plans for the American Beach Museum, which opened in 2014 and preserves the history of American Beach.

MaVynee Betsch was the unofficial historian of American Beach and up until just a few weeks before her death in 2005, enthusiastically gave Black History tours of the community for visitors. Ms. Betsch is truly a Northeast Florida conservation icon.