Tybee Island, Georgia—

Thousands of black college students are expected to attend the annual Spring Fling at Georgia’s largest public beach this weekend, where they will be greeted by dozens of extra police officers and barricades blocking neighborhood streets. While the beach will remain open, officials are blocking access to nearby parking lots.

Tybee Island, east of Savannah, has been trying ever since students at Savannah State University, a historically black school, started an April beach party called the Orange Crush more than 30 years ago. respond to this activity. Residents often complain about loud music, litter on the sand and revelers urinating in their yards.

A year ago, those complaints turned to fear and anger when up to 48,000 people flocked to the 4.8-kilometre-long island every day on weekends. That left a small police force busy fielding a flood of emergency calls reporting shootings, drug overdoses, traffic jams and fights.

Mayor Brian West, elected last fall by Tybee Island’s 3,100 residents, said the barricades and extra police were not just about limiting crowds. He hopes this crackdown will drive away Orange Crush for good.

“This has to stop. We can’t have crowds like this anymore,” West said. “My goal is to end it.”

Critics say local officials overreacted and appeared to be specifically targeting black tourists for visiting South Beach, which until 1963 was only available to whites. They noted that Tybee Island attracts large crowds on the Fourth of July and other summer weekends, and visitors are primarily white, as they make up 92 percent of the island’s residents.

“Our weekends are packed all season long, but when the ‘Orange Crush’ comes, they close the parking lots, increase the police presence and act like they have to be responsible,” said one of the island’s few black residents, said one group leader, Julia Pearce. The organization is called the Taibbi Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Organization. She added: “They think black people are criminals.”

This week, workers set up metal barricades on the main thoroughfare that runs parallel to the beach, blocking parking meters and residential streets. Two large car parks near a popular marina are closing. There are about 20 police officers on Tybee Island, plus about 100 deputy sheriffs, Georgia State Troopers and other police officers.

Security plans were influenced by tactics used to reduce crowds and violence during spring break in Miami Beach last month, the Tybee Island police chief observed.

Officials insist they are taking action to avoid a repeat of last year’s Orange Crush party, which they said had become a public safety crisis with crowds at least double the usual size.

“To me, this has nothing to do with race,” said West, who believes city officials have not previously taken a stronger stance against Orange Crush because they feared being called racist. “We can’t let that be a reason to make our citizens unsafe, so we’re not going to do that.”

Tybee Island police reported 26 arrests during last year’s Orange Crush. The charges include one count of armed robbery, four counts of public affray and five counts of drink driving. Two police officers reported bottles being thrown at them, and two women told police they were beaten and had their wallets taken.

One person was injured when shots were fired at a car on a traffic-clogged highway about a mile from the island. Officials blamed the shooting on road rage.

Orange Crush supporters and critics alike say it’s not college students who are causing the worst problems.

Joshua Miller, a 22-year-old senior at Savannah State University who plans to attend this weekend, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the crackdown is at least partly racial.

“I don’t know what they have,” Miller said. “I didn’t have any ill intentions by going there. I was just hanging out to have fun.”

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson was one of the black students at Savannah State University who helped launch Orange Crush in 1988. The university stopped participating in the 1990s, and Johnson said the celebration “went off the rails” over time. But he also told reporters he was concerned about the “overrepresentation of police” at the beach party.

At Nickie’s 1971 Bar & Grill near the beach, general manager Sean Ensign said many neighboring shops and restaurants will be closed during the Orange Crush, but his restaurant will remain open, selling takeout food orders like last year. But with nearby parking closed, Ensign said his profits could take a hit, “probably by a few thousand dollars.”

This isn’t the first time Tybee Island has targeted black beach parties. In 2017, the city council banned alcohol and only played music on the beach during the Orange Crush weekend. A discrimination complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Justice led city officials to sign a non-binding agreement to implement uniform rules for large events.

West said Orange Crush is different because it was promoted on social media by someone who didn’t have a license. A new state law allows local governments to recoup public safety costs from unlicensed event organizers.

In February, British Wigfall was refused permission to park a food truck on the island during Orange Crush. The mayor said Wigfall will continue to promote events on the island.

Wigfall, 30, said he was promoting a concert in Savannah this weekend, but there were no events involving Orange Crush on Tybee Island.

“I can’t control it,” Wigfall said. “No one controls the dates people go there.”