Aquatic-safety advocate Angela Beale-Tawfeeq grew up swimming on the public pool in her predominantly Black neighborhood. “We at all times say, ‘In North Philadelphia, born and raised, within the swimming pool is the place we spent most of our days,’ she recites, referencing the acquainted lyrics of TheContemporary Prince of Bel-Airtheme music.
Now the training and analysis director of Range in Aquatics (one of many nation’s solely organizations of Black and brown aquatics professionals), Beale-Tawfeeq is likely one of the many compelling voices contributing to Pool: A Social Historical past of Segregation, a brand new wide-ranging exhibition about the USA’s historical past of segregated swimming and its connection to in the present day’s alarming drowning charges in Black communities. Encompassing historical past, artworks and storytelling throughout a broad array of media, the immersive presentation makes use of public swimming swimming pools as a lens by which to ponder social justice and public well being.
The 4,700-sq-ft exhibition is now on view at Philadelphia’s historic Fairmount Water Works, a neo-classical landmark abutting the Schuylkill River that pumped water into the town till the flip of the twentieth century and later turned an aquarium after which one of many metropolis’s first built-in swimming pools, backed by the daddy of the actor Grace Kelly. After a long time of preservation efforts, a lot of the constructing reopened in 2003 as an environmental training middle, however the three-lane cement pool space was by no means restored attributable to lack of funding, in line with Victoria Prizzia, the exhibition organizer.
“It felt crucial to have that sacred house – a historic web site and former public pool that had been uncared for and captured in a state of arrested decay,” says Prizzia, a former lifeguard and aggressive swimmer who since 2009 has directed many tasks about water points and the atmosphere. “Whenever you step inside, you actually are transported. It is a reclaiming of that house, to inform the story another way.”
The exhibition’s projections carry the partitions of the house to life. Close to the doorway lies a digital pool of water that guests are inspired to sit down round and just about dip their toes into whereas listening to interview excerpts from athletes, activists and lecturers. “I really like when you might have the architectural parts converse for themselves, and on this case they actually change into one other character,” Prizzia notes. (And this character has seen its share of floods attributable to its riverbank location: the exhibition was all set to open in September, however Hurricane Ida swept by mere hours after the opening reception; the house flooded, however miraculously nothing was broken.)
Public swimming pools have lengthy been contested websites that replicate America’s racial and financial divisions, for the reason that Nineteen Twenties when swimming pools started to be segregated by race as a substitute of, as beforehand, by intercourse or class. A deep nervousness emerged round that point about folks of various races and sexes sharing such intimate areas. Within the south, segregation was mandated by metropolis ordinances and different official exclusionary guidelines; in northern states, de facto segregation occurred on account of constructing public swimming pools in white neighborhoods or, extra steadily, by intimidation, harassment and violence.
A digital animation fee by the famous Philadelphia playwright James Ijames titled Transferring Portraits interweaves the historical past of segregated swimming with the achievements of Black swimming heroes. Solid on to the Water Works’ historic facade reverse customized stadium seating evoking the golden period of public swimming pools, it’s a spotlight of the exhibition, in line with Prizzia: “We’re not solely exhibiting tragedy but additionally revealing this different present – the accomplishments which have been forgotten, taking place in parallel, by Black swimmers.”
Additionally largely neglected is the truth that many non-European peoples have been proficient swimmers till the late 1800s, at which level a nascent white seashore and pool tradition drove folks of coloration away from these areas. In Pool, this important and little-known historic context comes through archival photos and narratives from Kevin Dawson, writer of the 2018 guide Undercurrents of Energy: Aquatic Tradition within the African Diaspora. “The exhibit is basically necessary in that it’s serving to to encourage Black folks to get again into the water,” Dawson tells the Guardian. “Many are seeing swimming as type of their historic heritage that Jim Crow racism denied them.”
The legacy of that shameful historical past, compounded by the slashing of funds for public swimming pools, is obvious in in the present day’s grim drowning disparities: in Pennsylvania, Black youngsters have a 50% greater price of unintended drowning than white youngsters. Nationwide, Black youth are virtually six occasions extra probably than white youngsters to drown in a swimming pool, and 69% of Black youngsters have little to no swimming potential, in contrast with 42% of white youngsters. “The story of water can be a story of social justice,” says Prizzia, pointing to inequities in land use, infrastructure and air pollution along with entry to swimming areas.
Philadelphia has a uniquely wealthy public pool tradition, opening the primary out of doors municipal pool within the US in 1883 (which functioned as a public tub for poor and immigrant communities who didn’t have indoor plumbing) and, with greater than 70 swimming pools, nonetheless boasting the most important variety of public swimming pools per resident of any giant American metropolis. In response to an outcry over drownings in close by rivers and creeks, seven swim golf equipment cropped up across the center of the century to serve each city and suburban Black swimmers. (A number of are nonetheless going robust in the present day, together with the nation’s first Black-owned swim membership.) “Philadelphians love their swimming pools,” Prizzia says. “They’re actually necessary to the material of native neighborhoods. They’re like your prolonged household.”
Beale-Tawfeeq is aware of that properly: “I grew up understanding that studying to swim can really save lives in additional methods than one.” She joined the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation diving group at age 10, later was coached by the visionary Jim Ellis (who shaped the nation’s first Black swim group and was the topic of the 2007 movie Satisfaction), and ultimately attended Howard College on an athletic scholarship. Now a physical-education educator, she touts swimming’s well being advantages: “It’s a bodily exercise you are able to do from six months previous till you’re 100.”
Beale-Tawfeeq notes there’s trauma within the exhibition’s narratives, however an exuberant mural on the exhibition entrance hopes to steadiness that. Created by El Salvador– born, Philadelphia-based artist Calo Rosa and representing an providing to a Yoruba water goddess, the piece exhorts guests to “dive in”. “We needed to create an invite to come back in and get pleasure from too,” Prizzia says. “By excluding folks from swimming, you’re additionally excluding them from a really pure pleasure. Individuals gravitate towards water; everybody desires to play in it. Hopefully the exhibition is a pathway for folks to study to swim and have entry to one thing that may carry them pleasure.”
Pool: A Social Historical past of Segregation is exhibiting on the former Kelly Pool within the Nationwide Historic Landmark Fairmount Water Works till August 2022
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