They Built Their Own Boating 'Shangri-La.' Preserving It May Be Just As Hard
It was the early 1940s, when 12-year-old Charles "Bob" Martin, a Washington, D.C., kid who had always loved the water, decided to try to rent a boat. So he headed down to the waterfront to ask about the cost. A white man working there told him it would cost $5 to reserve a rowboat, plus a quarter for every hour on the water.
The next week Martin headed back to the waterfront with money he'd cobbled together from his job at a local pharmacy. He saw the same man with the boats for rent.
What happened next remains seared into his memory.
"This man broke my heart," he said. "I said, 'I got the quarter,' and the man looked at me, and I'm quoting him now. He says: 'I don't know why you keep running around down here to rent a boat, because we do not rent these boats to noso you can just leave here and
