God Bless the Child

Earlier this week the details surrounding The Creative Steps Day Care’s raggedy experience at the privately owned Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County came to light. According to news reports, Creative Steps negotiated a seasonal membership of $1900 with the club’s management that would have allowed the campers weekly group swimming sessions. The campers at Creative Steps are predominately African-American and Hispanic and once they arrived for their first visit to the club on June 29, they were met with cold stares and a less than welcoming vibe. A few of the campers even heard at least three of the club members make disparaging comments about the campers’ presence at the pool. Following this initial visit, the swim club suspended Creative Steps membership and offered to refund all of their money.

The camp doesn’t want a refund, but to offer their campers a weekly opportunity to play in an outdoor pool in a safe and clean environment. The president of the swim club has apologized but insists that his mostly-white membership are not racists, but has been told by some of the members that the campers presence at the pool will change the “complexion” of the pool. WTF?

This story has gone viral on the internet and received worldwide media attention. Although it’s apparent to me that the club’s reaction smacks of racism, I do think it’s important to offer a slightly broader perspective. As a board member of the nation’s oldest privately-owned African-American swim club, the Nile Swim Club, I know first-hand that allowing access to the pool’s facilities and amenities can sometimes cause tension between our membership and seasonal guests/rentals. But, the Nile has a robust camp program and we welcome over 200 campers to our pool daily, Monday through Friday. The camp program is a vital earned-income stream for our facility and we often find ourselves having to explain to our members the importance of our camp program in offering financial stability to the institution. Communication between our board and membership is key.

The Nile was founded 50 years ago because the Yeadon Swim Club refused membership to African-American residents of Yeadon, PA. My grandparents, Walter and Veronica Nelson, were a part of the founding group in 1959. These members decided to pool their resources together and build a club where they could come with their friends and family and feel welcome, instead of spending their money in legal action demanding that the Yeadon Swim Club become integrated. Now, 50 years later, the Yeadon Swim Club no longer exists and the Nile is still offering a respite for families and campers in the surrounding area.

It’s a sad moment for parents when they witness their children experience a real/ perceived racist act for the very first time. We all know it’s coming eventually, but when it finally hits, it’s like a punch in the gut and wears you out. You have to take a deep breath and do your best not to let the incident become a defining moment, but preparation and ongoing conversations are required because it’s still a fact of life for children of color. I faced a similar moment like the parents of the Creative Step campers earlier this year with an incident between Miss Olivia and a parent of a soccer team of an opposing team in a neighboring league, which included the parent referring to Olivia as that little colored girl with those dreaded things in her hair.

There was a call for folks to gather today in front of the Valley Swim Club and march in protest of their treatment of Creative Steps. Me, I’m not down for marching in this instance… no, I’m taking a page from my family’s history book and I reached out to Creative Step and invited them to join our program at the Nile. To be honest, I could care less about the Valley Swim Club and their raggedy, lily-white club… they can keep it. I’m confident their exclusive policies will lead them to the same demise of the Yeadon Swim Club. God bless the child that got his own.

Being Mindful

So, we’re back at the Nile Swim Club this summer and this year it seems like we’re spending a lot more time at the pool because I’ve been appointed to the board and have been handling the coordination of the summer camps and facility rentals. Olivia picked right back up where she left off last summer and is swimming like a fish. Yannick is doing pretty good too and has been working on treading in 5 feet.

Most of the same lifeguards we had last year have returned and even though I remember them being playful with my two kids last year, this year I notice something a little different. I think my 10 year-old little girl may be flirting just a bit and enjoying the playful attention a tad more than I’m comfortable with. I’m not only one who noticed it either, my mom commented on it while she was hanging out with us at the pool the other day.

I’m not sure how I feel about this and I'm trying not to overreact because she isn’t acting inappropriately or anything, but I do want to make her aware that she’s growing up and mindful of what’s she’s projecting. I'm getting the sense that the hard work of raising my girl is really about to begin.

Summers at the Nile

When I was about five, my mother spent lots of money on swimming lessons at the local YMCA. Let’s just say that instead of being money well spent, most of the money sadly went down the drain. It wasn’t until the summer months came and we started spending our days at the Nile did I truly learn to swim and thus began a summer ritual that lasted well into my teen years.

The Nile is the oldest Black-owned swim club in the country and my grandparents and some of their neighbors were founding members. The club was created in 1959 when a group of progressive African American residents of Yeadon, PA were denied membership to the all-White Yeadon Swim Club. This was no small accomplishment because this endeavor required they pool their resources, buy a plot of land and build a pool, clubhouse, snack bar and modest recreational facilities, and ironically, as the Nile continues to offer its members a family-friendly respite minutes away from Philadelphia’s city limits, the Yeadon Swim Club no longer exists. As a kid, I remember my White classmates hosting their summer birthday parties at the Yeadon Swim Club and it was simply understood I wouldn’t be invited because of the club’s no Blacks allowed policy.

It looks like history may be repeating itself, because two years ago Loverman and I invested in a series of lessons at a Y in the city hoping that our brown babies would morph into brown water babies and share our love for swimming. Didn’t work. Fortunately, neither displayed a fear of the water, but it seems for the money we spent, we should have gotten beyond a flailing semblance of a doggie paddle.

Since moving to a neighborhood not far from my childhood home, I often found myself fondly smiling as I drove past the Nile. I vividly recall riding my bike to the pool everyday from the last day of school in mid-June to Labor Day, becoming tanned way beyond my usual shade of café au lait. This year as summer approached both my mom and aunt suggested Loverman and I invest in a membership for our family. It sounded good to me, but with all of the other summer expenses, I didn’t know if it was possible, but two weeks ago I decided to stop by the club and pick up the membership info, and as I looked over the grounds I was flooded with the most wonderful memories and rushed home to crunch the numbers to see how we could make this work.

Later that evening as Loverman and I were reviewing the membership options, we went on the Nile’s website and on its homepage there’s a digital postcard featuring archival photographs of the Nile back in its heyday. There’s a photo of Harry Belafonte at the Nile, followed by The Supremes at the Nile and then I got the biggest surprise--- a photo of my grandmother, Veronica Athealea Nelson, looking her diva best with some friends at the Nile circa 1959. I couldn’t believe it, what an amazing, unexpected gift. For me it was incredibly clear my grandmother was beaconing me, telling me it was time to come home.

Well, we have joined and on our first visit I was welcomed by and reconnected with folks I haven’t seen in more than twenty-five years, people who have known me all my life and remember me when I was Olivia’s age. Although some things have changed, like there are fewer members, and there are even some White members, ultimately it’s just like I remember it. The sound system stays tuned to ‘DAS FM and the young lifeguards run a tight ship to ensure everyone’s safety and everyday adult swim is from 6:00 – 6:30pm and for that blissful half hour I can get my workout on and swim laps. Olivia and Yannick are now swimming like guppies and have browned almost to a crisp and the water really seems to wear Yannick out because after a day at the pool the little guy sleeps for a good 12 to 13 hours. Nirvnana!

It’s feels good to be back, like I’m contributing to my grandparents legacy and efforts to be apart of something bigger and benefits the entire community. A lofty concept sure, but it’s true and its without question the best investment we could have made this summer.