- [Narrator] You've probably heard the stereotype.
- Black people. - Black people.
- Black people.
- Black people just can't swim.
- [Narrator] For generations this has been
an all-too-familiar tale within the Black community.
But here's something you may not know.
Black children are drowning at three times
the rate of white children,
and years of racial segregation
in America's pools may be to blame.
(light music)
In the United States, 64% of Black children can't swim.
- My son, Genesis Holmes, was only 13 years old.
He wanted to swim with his friends.
- [Narrator] In May 2014, police reported
to a scene near a local high school
in the small town of Hollywood, South Carolina.
An unidentified teen was found floating
in a pond off Highway 162.
Dive and rescue teams scoured the area
and recovered the body of Genesis Holmes.
- Genesis didn't make it back out
'cause Genesis didn't know how to swim.
All our life, most of us, honestly,
we was told to stay from the water.
It's like a family tradition that they had
from generation to the next generation.
So I taught my children to stay away from water.
Genesis had so much plans.
He had great plans for his life.
- [Narrator] Genesis' death is reflective of a darker trend
of accidental drownings across the country.
In the U.S., more than 10 people die
from drowning each day.
One in five of those deaths
are children between the ages of one and 14,
and most of those deaths are disproportionately Black.
So why is this happening?
And why are Black children drowning at such high rates?
We tapped University of Montana history professor,
Jeff Wiltse, to talk about racism
and the social history
that shaped America's first public pools.
- The very first public pools were located exclusively
in large northeastern cities,
Philadelphia, Boston, New York.
They were all in poor neighborhoods,
what we'd call urban slums.
- [Reporter] For the poor children of New York,
a million dollar swimming pool.
A luxury summer resort for the kids
of the sweltering tenements and slums on east side.
- Where poor and working class immigrants,
native born African Americans lived,
and that's the population that they were intended to serve.
Sort of, dirty working-class boys and young men
would plunge into the pool and then clean themselves
in the water of the pool.
It was essentially served as a large bathtub.
- [Narrator] That's right, the first public pools
were not only racially inclusive,
but they served as bathhouses for the poor,
who often swam nude.
For this reason, public pools originally
prohibited men and women from swimming together.
But after World War I, that all changed.
After the war, Americans were earning more and working less.
To give you a sense,
the average workweek went from 59 hours before the war
to 51 hours after the war.
This gave Americans a lot more time
to enjoy leisure activities like swimming,
and eventually opened the door for new, mixed-gender pools.
- And it's the point at which a city gender integrates,
allows a males and females to use the same pool
at the same time, that cities and white swimmers
imposed racial segregation.
In a nutshell, the basic reason was,
you know, white public officials
and white swimmers would not allow Black men
to interact with white women
at such an intimate public space.
- [Narrator] Racial discrimination
became normalized and institutionalized across the country.
From the north to the south, "white only" pools
became hallmarks for racial exclusion,
and they would stay that way until the '60s.
Southern cities used Jim Crow laws
to enforce segregation in pools and other public spaces,
while northern cities used intimidation
and violence to keep Blacks out.
All the while, local chapters of the NAACP
worked to file lawsuits
against neighborhood pools and beaches
that denied Blacks access.
Pools went from being places for leisure
to racial battlegrounds.
And it would take two protests in Florida to change that.
- [Reporter] What are you prepared to do now, Dr. King?
- Well, we will stand here and protest
what we feel is a blatant injustice.
- [Narrator] On June 11, 1964,
police arrested Dr. Martin Luther King
and more than a dozen religious leaders
after they staged a protest against racial segregation
at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida.
His arrest inspired others to act.
Less than a week later,
16 rabbis joined a group of Black and white protesters
at the same hotel.
As the rabbis prayed on the property,
protesters jumped into a "white only" pool to stage a swim-in.
What happened next sent shock waves across the country.
(intense music)
That's the Motor Lodge hotel owner, James Brock,
pouring acid into the pool to get protesters out.
Media reports of the story sparked enough outrage
to gain the attention of then-President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Some activists even say it influenced Johnson
to sign the Civil Rights Act less than a month later.
- All men are entitled to the blessings of liberty,
yet millions are being deprived of those blessings.
Not because of their own failures
but because of the color of their skin.
- [Narrator] The bill outlawed segregation based on race,
color, religion or sex,
a notion that, until that point,
was common practice throughout most of the country.
And while several places across the U.S.
had already begun desegregating public spaces,
by the time the Civil Rights Act was passed,
it was too late.
(light cheery music)
After World War II,
white Americans left cities for the suburbs
in pursuit of the highly commercialized American Dream.
You know the whole, car, white picket fence,
home in the suburbs?
Now you might be thinking,
what does white flight have to do
with Black people swimming?
Well, the answer is: a lot.
(whistle blowing)
Once white Americans left for the suburbs,
cities throughout the country
stopped investing in the upkeep of their public pools.
So when Blacks and other minorities
finally regained access after the Civil Rights Act,
most of them had already closed.
- Tens of thousands of private club pools
developed in suburban communities,
and what that enables suburban communities to do,
members to do, is to control who has access to those pools
and who they determined would not
have access to those pools and the swim lessons
that occurred at those pools.
- [Narrator] Today, gentrification is the driving force
behind modern day pool segregation.
So in other words,
it isn't so much your race that determines
your likelihood of being able to swim, but your class.
For example, affluent suburban communities
are far more likely to have access to pools
than their city counterparts.
Look at the numbers and you can see why.
There are more than 10 million residential pools
compared to the 300,000 public pools across the country.
On top of that, public pools are disappearing.
Since 2009, more than 1800 public pools
have closed across the country.
Some rural towns like Hollywood, South Carolina,
where Genesis Holmes lived, never even opened one.
- Genesis cried out for help
because he didn't know how to swim.
If me and my husband had gave him swim lesson,
Genesis would have made it out.
- [Narrator] After Genesis's death,
Jennifer Holmes couldn't stop thinking about the what-ifs.
What if she had learned how to swim?
What if Genesis had swim lessons?
That's when she came up with an idea.
- Being that I lost our baby,
I had to do something to where
that I could let others know how important water safety is,
that what we were taught is not good for us
and why is this it's important to learn how to swim,
to help reduce drowning out in the rural area.
- [Narrator] And she didn't stop there.
Holmes became a lifeguard and raised more than $15,000
for the Genesis Project
to bring swimming lessons to Black children
in her small town.
It wouldn't take long
before the rest of the community noticed.
After hearing about Genesis,
the Charleston County Parks Foundation
gave Holmes $3 million dollars
towards opening the town's first public pool,
the Genesis Pool.
- We should rejoice this day,
that many lives will learn how to swim.
We honor Genesis Holmes,
and we honor all that went this tragic way.
We don't care where you're from,
you are welcome to learn about water safety.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
When Genesis was about five, six year[s] old,
he told me about amazing vision that he had.
That he was sitting in a palm of a man hand
and it was huge.
"Mom, I'm gonna do big things."
You know (laughing).
- I said, "Like Genesis, come on,
"you're five, six years old, big things?"
He said, "Yes, Mom, you should have saw his hands,
his hand was so amazing.
I was sitting in the clouds."
And when they told me that Genesis
and his friends were swimming,
and Genesis didn't make it out,
my life changed.
Our lives changed.
And all I can remember is that Genesis said,
"Mom, I'm going to help many people.
And so many people is gonna know my name."
(gentle sad music)