Surf Cat

Thousands of surfers hit the beaches every year to surf the waves, just not that many people of color.

It’s a stigma that two Jacksonville-based companies, Anact and SurfearNEGRA, have teamed up to dispel with the ultimate goal of diversifying the sport of surfing.

The companies paired with award-winning photographer Malcolm Jackson to create a limited-edition tote bag to support the Black Lives Matter Movement with the focus being on breaking the stigmas and stereotypes that prevent people of color from being connected to the water.

The $35 tote bags launched on Aug. 4 and are available at anact.com with 10 percent of the sales going toward SurfearNEGRA and its mission to get more African Americans surfing the beaches. They are made from hemp and organic cotton.

“We wanted to be able to create a light around the movement and to get people to better

understand the history of the African American human rights here in this country,” said Anact founder Brianna Kilcullen. “We ultimately want to remove those barriers and to promote and create that equality to where everyone has access.”

The photos on each tote bag show the SurfearNEGRA founder, pro surfer Gigi Lucas, posing with a surfboard on American Beach on Amelia Island, which was one of the only beaches in the South where African Americans could swim during the Jim Crow era. It wasn’t until 1968 when Blacks were allowed on unsegregated beaches.

“There are emotional traumas from Jim Crow that have prevented generations of Black families from enjoying the ocean that have also deterred Black people from learning how to swim,” Lucas said.

This all translates to the stigma that Black people don’t swim. Additional stigmas relating to Black people not going into the water have a lot to do with hair and how people choose to wear it.

Lucas said her organization has been able to send 63 girls to surf camp in the Florida area over two summers. One of the girls she has influenced is 17-year-old Deyona Burton. She is in the ¡100 Girls! Program at SurfearNEGRA and continues to take what she has learned from camp and put it into what she does now.

The Florida State College at Jacksonville student is involved in numerous programs, including starting the initiative SPEAR (Showing Political Engagement and Responsibility) that strives to create a positive, social and political change through youth civic engagement.

It was through her involvement with programs like SPEAR that she was able to develop a partnership with Lucas as they both shared the similar focus of diversity.

Since partnering with Lucas, the two have done an array of events such as beach yoga on Juneteenth and doing work relating to police brutality and what students of Duval County thought of the issue.

Burton found that just by working alongside Lucas, she knew she had found the perfect mentor and a dynamic partnership.

 “When I first met Ms. Gigi, I thought she was crazy trying to get to see if I could swim, but later on as I got to know her, you find out so many amazing things about her and she really listens and wants the world to have a mentor, and she tries to be that mentor to everybody,” Burton said.

From learning how to surf and tackling diversity, Burton has learned from Gigi how to be humble and morally grounded.

These issues surrounding the lack of diversity in the water, capped off by today’s protests against social injustice, is the reason why Lucas, Kilcullen, Jackson and Burton support getting more people into surfing programs and out of their comfort zone.

“I think what both of these ladies [Lucas and Kilcullen] are doing is absolutely phenomenal because it shows a partnership,” Burton said.