At the beginning of summer, I realized
I didn't know where a community pool was near where I lived.
Throughout my commutes to and from work I would think about this as I
passed various neighborhoods with their own pool houses and the YMCA
with an indoor pool. I kept wondering where the city's public pool
was. The more I thought about it, the more I started wondering when
neighborhoods started building their own pools and whether it was a
suburban thing, as I don't remember seeing such private pools in the
smaller town I grew up in. I thought about the divisive nature of
these private pools, how they allowed those who could afford in such
neighborhoods to insulate themselves from those different from them,
and how those different people were more likely to be black or
Hispanic.
With the recent success of Simone
Manuel at the Summer Games in Rio and the discussion of racial
segregation at the pool, I've started thinking about this topic
again. Finally doing some research into the subject I wasn't
surprised by what I found. Prior to the 1950s private pools were very
rare but were generally racially as well as gender segregated.
Shortly after the mid-century point, communities started to allow men
and women to swim together, but insisted on separate facilities for
black people. In some places the racial division was done through the
laws, which were eventually challenged, while other places allowed
its residents to enforce unofficial segregationist policies while
looking the other way during the violent encounters that ensued.
As the civil rights movement gained
momentum and courts overturned the laws keeping pools racially
separated, more and more pools were built on private lands in ways
that mirrored white flight out of the cities and into the suburbs.
Some of them were back yard pools, but many were behind the gates of
country clubs and neighborhood associations. This privatization of
pools allowed their users to maintain a homogeneous group of users
without running afoul of the law. In a few cases, the move from
public to private occurred to the same pool. Cities that owned and
operated the pools and who were in support of segregation would sell
their pool to private organizations who would continue to restrict
access based on race.
This divestment of public interest in
pools has had a lasting effect for poor and disadvantaged groups. The
number of public pools per capita is smaller than it was 60 years
ago, and those that do exist are often in whiter middle class parts
of town making it more difficult for those less well off to access
them. The diminished access helps explain the large number of black
and Hispanic children who don't know how to swim – they simply do
not have anywhere to learn.
Simone Manuel winning gold medals for
swimming is certainly a seminal moment in US history, but her success
does not mark the end of racially motivated policies in America. We
still have plenty of work to do if we believe it important that all
children should have the ability to learn to swim and enjoy a hot
summer day in the pool. Perhaps a move back to community or city
pools can provide a place where people can come together and
recognize the humanity and fundamental sameness in one another rather
than fear each others' differences in ways that play out on city
streets where cops disproportionately respond to black citizens with
violence and targeted communities react with riots.
Sources:
