American Beach is a historic beach community popular with African-American vacationers. It is located north of Jacksonville, Florida on Amelia Island in Nassau County. During the time of segregation and the Jim Crow era, African Americans were not allowed to swim at most of beaches in Jacksonville, and several black-only areas were created. American Beach was the largest and most popular, and was a community established by Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Florida's first black millionaire and president of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company.