In Volusia County, Bethune Beach was once part of a nationally known African-American resort named for educator and presidential advisor Mary McLeod Bethune. When segregation closed most Florida beaches to black people, Bethune, after seeing her own students turned away from local beaches, joined other investors in the 1940s to buy 2.5 miles of oceanfront and lands along the Indian River so black people would have a place of their own. By the 1950s, Bethune-Volusia Beach was a popular destination for swimming, fishing, picnicking, car racing, live music, dancing, and socializing, drawing mostly Central Floridians for day use as well as visitors from places including New Smyrna, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh who stayed in a motel and private houses. Bethune envisioned a large, year-round resort controlled by African Americans but open to all people, yet the larger development never truly succeeded, and by the 1970s that dream had faded as most black landowners gave up their property and integration opened other beaches. Even so, in its heyday Bethune Beach was a beloved place on Florida's Atlantic coast where people of color could gather, relax, and swim freely.