Running head: JUST KEEP SWIMMING 1

Just Keep Swimming: An Analysis of Aqua-Phobia and

Inability to Swim Imbued in African American Culture

Elijah Howard

First Colonial High School

Legal Studies Academy

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Abstract

In the United States there is a disproportionate number of unintentional water related injuries and

drownings among the African American population. Historically African Americans were

allowed very limited access to pools and beaches during the Jim Crow era and this may be a

significant contributor to a sense of aquaphobia in African American culture. This research not

only examines the underlying causes of aquaphobia from a legal, cultural, and political

perspective, but also examines how those causes contribute to the lack of swimming ability and

abundance of drownings in African American culture today.

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An Analysis of Aqua-phobia and Inability to Swim Imbued

in African American Culture

Nearly 70% of the Earths surface is covered in water; however, many people dont have

basic swimming skills. Every day about 10 people die from drowning. Its ranked number five

on the United States causes of unintentional deaths (CDC, 2016). Whether it be from fear of

swimming, racial disparities, or financial inability, there is still a large percentage of people in

the United States that cant swim. In a study conducted by the American Red Cross, although

80% of respondents said they could swim, only about 56% actually knew the 5 basic swimming

skills: jumping in over their heads and returning to the surface, swimming at least 25 yards

without stopping, treading water for at least one minute, turning completely around to find a way

out of water, and exiting a pool without using a ladder (2014). When broken down and looked at

racially though, only about 33% of black American respondents reported that they were able to

do the 5 basic swimming skills compared to 51% of White respondents (Irwin, C., Irwin, R.,

Martin, N., & Ross, S., 2010). Whats even worse is that the 5 basic skills are only in a pool, not

in a high risk scenario like big waves, rip tides, swells, currents, sudden drop-offs, uneven

surfaces, marine life, debris, boats, or natural disasters. It is paramount to understand the

underlying causes of inability to swim and how to resolve them to prevent drownings and

water-related injuries.

Jim Crow and Colored Beaches

Racism, informally kept alive by Jim Crow Laws, kept black Americans from going to

public pools and beaches in many states. Some coastal cities created colored beaches; however,

many were in polluted, dangerous, and hard to reach locations. The Journal and Guide, a weekly
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Newspaper in Norfolk, reported that, 26 colored persons lost their lives by drowning in the

Hampton Roads area (Kahrl A. W, 2016). This wasnt just children getting caught in a riptide;

black Americans were seeking relief from the cramped living quarters, poor sewage and

ventilation, extreme heat, and rampant diseases of the slums in dangerous, unsupervised bodies

of water (Kahrl A. W, 2016). An editorial in the Ledger-Dispatch summed the problem up

neatly:

Here we are surrounded by many miles of deep-water front, of which an uncalculated

portion is no put to no use whatever... here we are, from time to time, lamenting sporadic

migrations of Southern Negroes to the North; here we are holding ourselves out as the

only people who truly understand the Negro; here we are claiming to be the best friends,

the only real friends of the Negro. And here we are, or here we have been, too selfish or

too indifferent or too callous or too arrogant or too fearful of some vague bugaboo to

make any effort to provide more than one-third of our population with facilities which the

poorest of our white people are able to enjoy at a trifling cost (Kahrl A. W., 2016).

Finally, in 1930, a section of Ocean View, an 11-acre stretch of beach, was bought by the

City of Norfolk, and was designated as the cities first colored beach; however, it soon came

under fire from real estate tycoons and white homeowners from the surrounding area because

there were no natural barriers between white homes and the colored beach that the city council

had proposed. The homeowners feared that the presence of a colored beach in Ocean View

would depreciate their land values and cause their property to become valueless (Kahrl A. W.,

2016). However; the National Housing Act of 1934 decreased the risks for Ocean views

homeowners because of its creation of the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA helped low
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and moderate-income families through specific loan programs that made owning a home a

smaller financial burden (USDHUD, 2012). Because of the FHA a sense of stability was brought

to the mortgage market and City Beach, Norfolks first colored beach, was formed.

Many colored beaches were not formed so peacefully. Yes there was originally protest to

City Beach, but violence about the matter was almost nonexistent. In New Orleans; however, the

lakefront of Seabrooks became a heavily fought over beach. Around 1940 police began to patrol

and round up black American swimmers, forcing them to leave the property (Kahrl A. W., 2016).

White soldiers at the nearby army base and fisherman that fished nearby filed complaints often,

until finally the citys commission council passed Ordinance 16542, which banned swimming at

the Seabrook beach, using the nearby army base to say it was a matter a national security (Kahrl

A. W., 2016). Violators were threatened with fifty days in jail or a twenty-five dollar fine, or

both. The real issue though was that the law only seemed to apply to colored people. According

to Robert Fullilove, a doctor who just wanted to enjoy the park and sit on the seawall, he was

quickly forced to leave Seabrooks by military personnel upon his arrival. Even when he put up a

mild protest, arguing that he had not been swimming and that there were white people in the

water at that very moment, the MP still ordered him off, going so far as to say that the city

ordinance that provided that no one was allowed to swim at Seabrooks, actually only applied to

black Americans (Kahrl A. W., 2016). Hostilities got to a point that even getting on a bus that

would go by Seabrooks while wearing swimming attire could result in abuse. Eventually the city

of New Orleans opened up Lincoln Beach, a small stretch of beach about 14 miles from the inner

city and completely remote from the rest of the city. The beach, named after Abraham Lincoln,

was to be the colored replacement for Seabrooks. Despite the remoteness and limited access to
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the beach there was another problem. The city of New Orleans had moved a little under 200

fishing camps adjacent to Lincoln Beach and those campgrounds dumped raw sewage straight

into the same lake that black Americans bathed and played in. The city's health director, John M.

Whitney found the waters extremely contaminated and unfit for bathing. Yet, apparently it was

not unfit for the citys black population. The city even built a bathhouse and hired lifeguards for

the beach despite knowing it was a virtual cesspool (Kahrl A. W., 2016).

Other cities would resort to make their colored beaches in wholly uninhabitable and

potentially dangerous locations too. Charleston, North Carolina, constructed the Riverside Beach

on the Wando River in the 1930s; however, Riverside Beach was practically one-tenths sand and

nine-tenths marsh. To make matters even worse the city and manufacturing plants dumped their

sewage right across from the river (Kahrl A. W., 2016).

Jim Crow and Pools

In the early 1900s, there was a pool-building spree in the United States. There were

thousands of pools that were opened up, many of them large resort pools, some even larger than

football fields. They were surrounded by grassy lawns, and concrete sundecks filled with

umbrellas and lounge chairs, and they attracted millions of swimmers (Wiltse, 2008). It was at

that point in time that cities began to racially segregate pools throughout the north, and

throughout the United States. Black Americans were typically relegated, if a pool was provided

at all, to a small indoor pool that wasn't nearly as appealing as the large, outdoor resort pools that

were provided for whites. Cities would either segregate pools through police officers and

officials, or they would do it through violence (Witse, 2008). Fairgrounds Park Pool in St. Louis

is an example of a city actually using their police force to bar colored entry to the pool. About
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two weeks before the pool opened, the citys chief of police ordered any officers stationed at

Fairgrounds to not allow any black Americans entry. Fairgrounds was an example of limited

resistance though, as most black Americans did not protest its segregation (Witse, 2007). In other

cases the police officers and officials were not directly involved; however, they would allow, and

even encourage white swimmers to keep black American swimmers out of pools through

violence. Highland Park pool, in Pittsburgh, was the forefront of racial confrontation when it first

opened in 1931 (Wiltse, 2008). The day of its opening, black individuals that tried to enter the

pool were asked for their health certificate to prove they were disease free, although no white

swimmers had been required to do so. The next day after receiving permission to go into to the

pool by the Superintendent of Public Works, Edward Lang, about 50 young black men would try

to enter the pool and were held under water, beaten, and pummeled until they left (Wiltse, 2007).

Despite asking officers at the pool for help, the officers stated they would not help anyone while

they were in the pool. Day after day small groups of black swimmers entered the pool and were

beaten out by white swimmers. The police became no help, they would watch, sometimes even

encourage the beatings. Then, when the victims lives were at risk or the group of assailants were

becoming particularly riotous the cops would arrest the victims for inciting to riot and fine

them between five and twenty-five dollars (Wiltse, 2007). The events that summer showed that

police officers, magistrates, and even elite city officials were in favor of segregating black

Americans from Highland Park Pool.

The city of Jackson, Mississippi actually closed down their pools instead of

desegregating them for fear that they could not operate safely on an integrated basis. They were

even brought to court about it by disgruntled black citizens, in the case, Palmer V. Thompson, the
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action was upheld by the Supreme Court because, instead of denying black Americans access to

the pools, everyone was denied access to the pools. This did not violate the equal protection

clause, which provides that that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the

equal protection of the laws, because not a single person, white nor black, was allowed access to

the pools.

Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the other hand, was yet another example of segregation of

pools enforced through violence. When the Dowd pool first opened in 1930, city officials refused

to admit black swimmers; however, after local NAACP chapters protested about colored

exclusion from the pool, city officials, acceded to their demands of inclusion in Dowd pool

(Wiltse, 2007). This decision was not from any change of heart though, city officials still did not

want black swimmers in the pool, but they also did not want to blatantly ignore New Jerseys

civil rights law, which banned any racial discrimination in public facilities (New Jersey Attorney

General, 2015). After the abolishment of official racial exclusion there was still the problem of

hostilities and harassment from white swimmers though. Initially, black swimmers were

intimidated from the pool after several people were beaten and one was fined for allegedly

threatening the pool attendant (Wiltse, 2007). However, nearly 8 years after Dowd pool opened,

several young men attempted to and actually won entry into the pool. Although faced with petty

annoyances and abuse the black swimmers continued to come until finally, white swimmers

found that violence was no longer a deterrent to keep black swimmers from entering the pool and

white attendance subsequently dropped to about a tenth of its original rate. City officials faced

immediate abuse from white swimmers thereafter though, until the city decided to close it for

economic reasons because they were unable to segregate the pool (Wiltse, 2007). Eventually,
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in 1939 the pool would be opened again, but for many years it would remain never wholly

integrated.

Despite the many cases of abuse and discrimination in pools, few black Americans

would file suit during this period in history. Lawsuits were something that many black

Americans and communities could not afford nor had the time for. The black community in the

city of Newton, Kansas, had those resources though. When Newtons officials devised a plan to

avoid Kansass civil rights laws by leasing the pool out to a private company, Samuel Ridley,

president of Newtons NAACP chapter, took action (Wiltse, 2007). Athletic Park Pool, the

object of this illegality, opened to the public in May of 1935, but the lessee of the pool, Harold

Hunt, denied all colored people access to the pool. Ridley filed suit on behalf of one of the the

swimmers that were denied entry to the pool, D. E. Kern, on the basis that black residents of

Newton paid taxes that went towards the pool, and that Hunt was purposefully given the lease for

Athletic Park Pool by city officials to deny all black persons the use of it (Wiltse, 2007). Ridley

went on to state that the actions of Hunt and Newton officials was a violation of the states civil

rights law, which similar to New Jerseys civil rights law, granted equal access to public

facilities, regardless of race, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution which

provided for equal protection of the laws (Cornell Law, 1992). The citys defense would delay

the court's ruling for nearly 5 more years until in 1940 the court ruled that the city illegally

attempted to escape responsibility for the lawful administration of the pool by leasing it to a

private individual or company. The court also ruled though that one individual cannot represent a

group of people, namely D. E. Kern representing the black community in Newton. Kern also did

not sufficiently prove he had presented himself at the pool and been denied admittance to it;
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therefore, he could have no complaint if he had never actually been denied access to the pool and

consequently no constitutional rights or state laws were violated (Wiltse, 2007). The case was

essentially settled but the court continued on to state that pool operators and officials had

expansive discretion when it comes to denying individuals access to municipal pools because of

its intimate setting:

It is a peculiar situation at a swimming pool since more or less informality is the rule at

such places. Mothers come there with small children and use the place as a playground.

On this account there is a wide discretion vested in those in charge of such pools as to

whether persons of a quarrelsome disposition or big boys known to be bullies or men or

women known to be of immoral character generally should be admitted. This is true

regardless of the color or race of the person excluded (Wiltse, 2007).

This decision, along with the courts finding that one individual cannot represent a group

of people essentially shattered all legal defence against the barring of blacks from entering public

pools. City officials now had significant leeway in what was considered an undesirable

individual. If a black swimmer was ever barred access to a pool in Kansas, city officials could

just retort that the individual in question had been turned away for being quarrelsome or

immoral (Wiltse, 2007).

These examples attest to the social, political, and legal ways that black Americans fought

against the surging tide of segregation and discrimination at swimming pools in the early

twentieth century. Although there were few successes early on, the black American population

trusted in the voice of legal protest to win through. Especially in the mid twentieth century, legal

protest began to spring up in more and more states, even winning out in some cases before the
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the United States Supreme Court overturned the separate but equal doctrine established by

Plessy v. Fergusun in 1896 in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). On

May 7, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown case that segregated schools were

unconstitutional. This catalyst for the modern civil rights movement inspired educational reform

nationally and by proxy created the legal means to challenge discrimination and segregation in

all public facilities and areas of society (Civilrights, n.d.).

The Financial Gap

Finances are one of the biggest obstacles in the path of soon to be swimmers. Swimming

lessons typically cost around $20-60 per session, and swimmers often require several lessons to

become proficient (YMCA, n.d.). The cost of just learning how to swim can quickly become a

burden on those that arent financially stable; however, participating in actual swimming lessons

can reduce the risk of drowning by approximately 88% in children, making swimming lessons

well worth their cost (Brenner, 2006).

According to a study done by USA Swimming in which finances were tested for by

whether or not a student was on the free or reduced lunch program, those that were on the free or

reduced lunch program reported significantly less swimming ability than those that were not

using the program (Irwin C., et al., 2010). In fact, when controlled by income, black Americans

were found to have much lower swimming ability than Whites and Hispanics (Irwin C., et al.,

2010).

However, swimming lessons can be feasible for lower income families. Organizations

like American Red Cross, and hundreds of city and state run programs throughout the United

States provide free or very low cost sessions for children (ARC, 2014). Programs like Students
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on the Swim, a learn to swim program for second grade students, especially help those who cant

afford to pay for swim lessons. Students on the Swim (SOS) currently teaches children at schools

that have a majority of students enrolled in Free/Reduced lunch (Dalone, 2016). This way they

can effectively target the lower income families that dont have as much money and cant afford

swim lessons. Although SOS is only in Virginia Beach, there are many similar programs and it

is especially important for parents to not be disillusioned by the face cost of swimming lessons.

There are many learning opportunities that are readily available to children and even adults.

Aquaphobia and the Generational Gap

Aquaphobia is defined as an excessive and persistent fear of water. Individuals affected

by aquaphobia may have trouble taking showers, being near bodies of water, even going out in

the rain. The typical person; however, does not fear water to that extreme, in most cases they fear

being submerged in water, and by proxy fear the thought of drowning (Milosevic, I., & McCabe,

R. E., 2015). Aquaphobia generally manifests in childhood, but if allowed to it will continue to

intensify into adulthood (Becker, E. S., Rinck, M., Trke, V., Kause, P., Goodwin, R., Neumer,

S.-P., & Margraf, J., 2007).

Additional studies have also shown that if a parent does not know how to swim or is

afraid of the water, there is only a 13 percent chance that a child in that household will learn how

to swim (Irwin C., et al, 2010). The YMCA also reports a history of dealing with fearful parents.

Parents will often worry about their childrens safety and see swim lessons as unnecessary

trauma for their child (YMCA, n.d.). Some parents even foster their child's fear of water by

showing distress or panic when near water, and unfortunately add yet another hump for the child

to overcome. Many swim sessions are required to absolve a child of aquaphobia and these
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sessions, although relatively quick, can last over several months. Phobias are often fickle beasts

for swim instructors because of the difference in temperament of children, and therefore require

slow exposure to help the child work their way up to swimming, a process that many parents feel

they dont have the time nor money for (Becker, E, et al., 2007).

This tradition of inherited aquaphobia is drastic when looked at from a historical

standpoint. Phobias are often caused by either lack of exposure or traumatic events (Milosevic,

I., & McCabe, R. E., 2015), making the twentieth century a breeding ground for aquaphobia in

black American culture. Not only did black Americans have extremely limited opportunities to

swim, they were also often brutally beaten when they did attempt to join their white counterparts

at pools and beaches. This also helps to explain the difference that the World Health

Organization has found in drowning rates among minorities. WHO estimates that the risk of

drowning or other unintentional water-related injuries for ethnic minority groups is between two

and four times that of other population subgroups (Sminkey, 2008).

This new trend of inability to swim among black Americans was further preyed upon by

several false studies conducted during the 60s and 70s. A journal called The Negro and learning

to swim: The buoyancy problem related to reported biological differences was the forefront

among these studies, its contents essentially providing that fat levels were the deciding factor in

buoyancy among swimmers (Allen, R, Nickel D, 1969). It also stated that black Americans

typically had less fat than white American and therefore were less buoyant and had a much

harder time swimming. This study, and others like it have been proven false numerous times

since; however, a large number of people accepted it at its face value during the time and further

contributed to a lack of swimming ability.

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Positive Effects of Swimming

To understand why having access to swimming opportunities was detrimental to black

American culture, it is important to understand the positive effects of swimming. Besides the fact

that swimming is one of the largest forms of recreational activities among youth and all age

groups in general (CDC, 2016), it is also one of the healthiest.

Swimming, unlike many other sports has little to no impact stress on the body

(Smartplay, 2013). Sports like football, wrestling, or lacrosse often involve sudden trauma to

parts of the body that can result in joint, bone, and muscle damage. Swimming, on the other hand

essentially eliminates the chance of damage to the body. Swimming also uses nearly every

muscle in the body, increasing muscle strength, endurance, and cardiovascular fitness

(Smartplay, 2013). These physical effects of swimming actually quite contrast the findings of the

studies that stated that fat was responsible for buoyancy. Swimming is in fact a very effective fat

burner because it keeps the bodys heart rate extremely elevated (Smartplay, 2013).

Swimming also provides several other benefits. Namely, it is a huge stress alleviant, a

peaceful and relaxing workout, and improves flexibility, coordination, balance, and posture

(Smartplay, 2013). Many people find that submersing themselves in water relieves physical pain,

allowing their mind to rest, therefore, it is often used in therapy. It is also used for physical

therapy when a patient is injured and must be extremely careful when working out their injury.

One of its final benefits, one that was briefly discussed earlier in the Swimming Pools and

Beaches section was an easy escape from the heat in cool waters. Overheating can be very

dangerous and often people will go swimming as a way to cool down (Smartplay, 2013).
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Conclusion

Racism and Jim Crow laws were the initial cause of an inability to swim imbued in

African American culture, yet somehow that hate and violence has beget more racism through

the belief that black people are unable to swim. A belief that is wholly untrue. Black people can

swim. Many; however, were never given the opportunity to learn because they were not allowed

to swim at the same beaches and pools as white people, which often meant they were not able to

find somewhere to swim at all. This also meant that their parents would never teach them to

swim, nor get them lessons because of financial constraints. A trend of aquaphobia also started to

grow because of the lack of exposure and traumatic events that were associated with bodies of

water, as many black Americans were beaten for even attempting to enter the same pools as

white Americans. It is important to recognize the various factors that have contributed to these

trends of aquaphobia and inability to swim so that solutions can be found so that all Americans

can enjoy the benefits of swimming.

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