Pool Bans Black Kids? What Decade Is It?

A largely white suburban Philadelphia swim club’s barring of black and Latino campers was so backward “I thought I had fallen into a time warp,” writes Annette John-Hall in the Inquirer. Things like this happened in the 1950s—when singer Dorothy Dandridge booked a room in a Las Vegas hotel, the staff actually drained the pool—but “this isn't 1950s Las Vegas. It's 2009 Philly.”

“I didn't understand because we're all the same. We're just a different color,” said one camper. The club’s president told the camp’s head that he’d had to “disinvite” the children because of a member vote, but a member says that’s not true: his fellow poolgoers had recommended a schedule change, not a ban. As the story has gone national, protesters have gathered—but pool management isn’t talking.