Forthcoming Project:

The Turnpike, The Hills, and the Farm: Looking Back on Black Life in the Hamptons

1950's photo of a car in front of Lloyd Turner's store on the Turnpike reading "Lloyd Turner's Store..."

The Turnpike

The first 18 years of Turner’s life straddled the villages of Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor, New York.  In the 1930s, her parents were part of the original African Americans — almost all from the South — to put down roots on what was often called “the turnpike” in Bridgehampton.

Patricia Turner, Age 6, smiling on Sag Harbor Hills Beach

The Hills

In the 1950s they built one of the first homes in neighboring Sag Harbor Hills, well known as one of America’s first vacation communities for African Americans.

In her next full-length project, Turner will explore the ways in which the black communities of Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor exemplify demographic and cultural patterns evident throughout the United States.

Photos from the Sykes-Turner Family Collection

Black and white photo of farmhouse captioned "Lloyd Turner's farm in Bridgehampton."

The Farm

With its agricultural economy, Bridgehampton attracted rural, working class African Americans whose farming skills were much needed by local potato farmers.

Using ethnographic field work, archival research, and her own semi-reliable memory, Turner seeks to tell largely unknown but very important stories of the people who made these communities sing.

Photo courtesy Judy Tompkins, The Other Hampton