07/31/2022
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The Nile Swim Club, the first Black-owned pool club in the United States, aims to teach hundreds of children to swim this summer, helping to close a dangerous racial gap.
Black children are far more likely than white children to report low or no swimming ability, a disparity that underlies grimmer statistics. In swimming pools in particular, the drowning rate of Black children ages 10-14 is nearly eight times that of white children.
From the country’s earliest days, swimming was curbed by racism, with swimmers brutally punished by slave owners who saw the activity as an avenue to freedom. In the 1920s, racial segregation of pools became the rule, enforced by either law or violence. As Black people began challenging pool segregation and winning in court, white people deserted public pools or closed them altogether. Urban swimming opportunities have waxed and waned ever since, at the mercy of funding and municipal attention.
The Nile Swim Club, which was established in 1958, wants to provide all children with the chance to learn. It created a program called No Child Will Drown in Our Town, offering 10 days of free swimming lessons. Anthony Patterson, the club president, said instructors taught nearly a thousand children last summer and hoped to teach even more this year. When Christopher Chiles, 11, was hesitant to jump into the pool during his lesson, his grandmother Joslyn Pattani-Raines, 61, said, “Do it for your ancestors.”
Tap link to learn more about the club’s effort to make swimming more inclusive. Photos:
