How African Americans Beat One of the Most Racist Institutions: The Public Swimming Pool

Frank Ocean @ Grist - In 1930s New Orleans, when the city began draining swamps around Lake Pontchartrain to create the whites-only Pontchartrain Beach, African Americans naturally protested because there were few other places for them to legally and safely bathe and swim. The city considered giving blacks a beach in a tiny portion of the lakeshore called Seabrook, where the Industrial Canal spills into the lake — along with all of the pollution you would guess is carried in a canal built for industrial purposes. But white homeowners didn’t want to grant even this filthy area to black kids.  Read more.