DESEGREGATION SHAPES THE MODERN SWIMMING ERA

Though it is remembered fondly (see story on page 24), White Rock Lake never was the ideal place to swim, according to 1939-72 Park and Recreation Department director L.B. Houston, whose recorded oral history is provided by city archivist John Slate.

Years before it closed, “the popularity of White Rock Beach began to decline. It was not a very dependable swimming place. In fact, it was just a recreation center. You know, go see and be seen and play in the sand,” Houston said. “Sanitation was always questioned.”

When White Rock beach closed, swimming’s modern era, which began in ’45, was just evolving in Dallas, progressing during a time of desegregation and accompanying unrest.

Swimming pools became a flashpoint for racial contention, notes professor Jeff Wiltse in his book, “Contested Waters: A Social History of

Swimming Pools in America.”

“Racist assumptions that black Americans were more likely to be infected with communicable illness” inflamed opposition to racial integration, Wiltse wrote.

Also, gender mixing at pools was dangerous, you know, perhaps mob violence.”

In Dallas, no written rule of racial segregation at park property existed. Rather, segregation was socially enforced, according to the park department’s centennial history. “Black cit- relatively new, and white swimmers objected “to black men interacting with white women at such visually and physically intimate spaces,” he adds.

Across the country, stories emerged of young black men being beaten for attempting to swim at white pools.

“In my book, I have pictures of black Americans who lie still on the ground with bloody heads from being pummeled, just for trying to access a swimming pool,” Wiltse said in an NPR radio interview.

Houston and members of the Dallas park board understood the perils.

“We could see the time when racially mixed swimming would be with us,” Houston said. “We had the feeling that the very last thing that white people would tolerate would be mixed swimming. We thought it would be izens risked harassment or worse for using white facilities.”

Aside from White Rock and other lakes, a couple of large municipal pools served Dallas swimmers in the early 1900s.

The nearest pool for black residents of Northeast and East Dallas was Griggs Park, the city’s second black pool after Exline, located south of Southern Methodist University, almost to Downtown Dallas. Prior to 1924 it was called Hall Street Negro Park and was renamed for Rev. Allen Griggs, a freed slave who became a minister and newspaper publisher.

Imbalance in amenities grew increasingly evident over the years.

A 1944 Dallas Morning News article reported that the city offered 60 acres of park for its 60,000 black res- idents. In contrast, 5,000 acres were reserved for its 320,000 white citizens.

Compared to other Southern cities, Dallas managed to make a relatively peaceful transition to integrated pools, according to Slate, who cowrote a paper with current park department director Willis Winters about the desegregation of Dallas parks.

In their essay, “A means to a peaceful transition,” Slate and Winters credit Houston with leading “a quiet revolution that was a bright spot in an otherwise tumultuous time in the city’s relationship with its black citizens.”

Park board members Ray Hubbard and Julius Schepps worked closely with Houston, according to Slate, “within the confines of institutionalized segregation to encourage the peaceful transition to an integrated park system.”

Houston explained in his oral history how he and the board devised a new public swimming program while gradually integrating.

They developed a grid system of communities, both black and white, with a swimming pool at the middle of each. These smaller pools would progressively replace the existing large municipal swimming facilities.

The idea was directly tied to equal rights and desegregation.

“Houston surmised that providing more pools in more neighborhoods would distribute them more equitably throughout Dallas while reducing the chances of confrontation,” note Slate and Winters.

Houston began keeping close track of the racial makeup of Dallas neighborhoods relying on employees who lived in transforming neighborhoods for information. He plotted data about racial trends and attitudes on a map hung in his office, which he used to make desegregation decisions.

“I never will forget the day [Schepps] called me and said, ‘L.B. are we ready to mix?’ By that time I think we had six or maybe nine pools. I told him my opinion that some could and others, doubtful,” Houston said in his oral history.

When it became clear a neighborhood was nearing a black-majority population, the local park was closed for a month and reopened as a “black” park. “By that time, most whites had moved on, and the park had been peacefully transitioned,” according to Houston’s oral history.

“This method was used successfully for both Lagow and Exline parks, which served South Dallas neighbor-

In summer 2010, a story from Shreveport, La., horrified the region. Six black teenagers, dead. Five went in after their friend who was drowning in the Red River’s shallow rough waters. A crowd stood nearby, helpless. Like their children, the adults could not swim. Black American children drown at a rate almost three times higher than white children, according to the USA Swimming Foundation. Swimming officials stress the key indicator is not race, but family — children from non-swimming households are eight times more likely to be at risk of drowning. Every summer for the past five years the YMCA of Dallas has taught minority children — 60 percent of whom cannot swim, they say — basic water safety skills through its Urban Swim Initiative. A component of the Urban Swim initiative is the Make a Splash program, which brings swimming lessons to neighborhood apartment complexes. In 2011 the effort resulted in 1,900 children in 27 apartment communities learning to swim. The next year, certified YMCA instructors taught twice as many. “Safety in and around water is an important issue for all children, but studies show that there are a disproportionate number of drownings among minority children,” YMCA President Gordon Echtenkamp said in 2012. “The Y established Urban Swim to focus on decreasing the number of swim-related fatalities in minority communities by providing swim lessons to children at no cost.” The Y also runs the Urban Swim Academy to “increase the number of minority youth that are certified as lifeguards and trained to save lives in pools, lakes and waterfronts.” hoods that had seen some of the most violent responses to integrated housing in Dallas’ history,” according to Slate and Winters. It was employed around the city, arguably resulting ultimately in equal amenities for black citizens.

Years later Houston would have to defend the park department’s seeming silence on issues of integration.

A trade magazine called Amusement Business noted in 1961 that

Dallas desegregated parks, golf courses and other recreational facilities but explicitly left public pools out of their agreement with civil rights leaders.

Houston defended his board’s methods, which, he pointed out, were supported by the Negro Chamber of Commerce and other local black groups.

“You were doing everything you could to prevent open rebellion. Because we were living on a powder keg. And when and if a revolt had ever been precipitated well, gosh, no telling where you would have ended up.”

Was it right to perpetuate socially segregated facilities? “No,” write Slate and Winters in their paper. “However, as agents of change from the inside they realized that whatever they could do from their positions would benefit a larger movement, and that anything that could prevent violent confrontation was better than the alternative.”

Pools To Spraygrounds To New Aquatic Centers

Just east of our neighborhood, the City of Rowlett is planning a $1 billion development that would bring an eight-acre manmade lagoon complete with a sandy beach and options for sailing. It’s the type of recreational paradise that will make Lake Highlands North pool look like a hole in the ground to some neighborhood families, no counting for nostalgia that will keep others swimming close to home (see “Where we swam,” page 30).

The City of Dallas has long tried to compete with the private sector in offering refreshing recreation. In the 1920-50s, it built dozens of pools, making the cool waters that were once only accessible to the wealthy something attainable for average families.

Prices to enter public pools have always been low, ranging from 50 cents to $3 before the year 2000, when the city enacted a summer of free swimming. The temporary program resulted in an attendance boom, according to a 2000 Dallas Morning News article.

Attendance at pools peaked in the 1980s, before budget restrictions led to shorter swimming seasons and reduced daily hours. In 1984 the city announced it would close six pools that recorded low attendance over that summer. Lake Highlands pools McCree and Skyline (Lake Highlands North) remained open, showing “robust attendance,” according to The Dallas Morning News. In 1994 the city closed four more of its remaining 22 pools. Other pools would scale back services. The department needed to cut spending, according to the Dallas Morning News, and the closures saved the city about $65,000. The park department at the time offered neighborhood children free transportation from the closed pools to the nearest open pools a few days a week, the article said, reporting also that the most popular pool in the city that year was Lake Highlands North, which drew about 18,000 swimmers.

In the 1990s, around the nation, aquatic centers and spraygrounds were gradually replacing traditional municipal pools, notes Kimley-Horn Associates, Inc. in its Aquatic Facilities Master Plan for the City of Dallas, which it updated last year. “Changing pool trends and health codes, competition for recreation time and dollars, and the advent of the commercial waterpark all have impacted attendance and operational sustainability at old style pools,” note the consultants. In the 2000s, Dallas built spraygrounds that offer a more water park-inspired experience than a traditional public pool.

In fact, Lake Highlands North Park is home to one of the region’s most popular public sprayground. Built in 2006, its success is a product of partnership between the city and corporate, individual and nonprofit sponsors such as the Lake Highlands Junior Women’s League, which raised tens of thousands of dollars for extra sprayground amenities. In 2007 the trade magazine Athletic Business plugged it as a model for the nation. In an article about Dallas replacing pools with more cost-effective spray parks, Dave Strueber, assistant director for the park department’s west region, called the Lake Highlands sprayground “a huge magnet for that community, where folks from all over

LAKE HIGHLANDS NORTH FAMILY AQUATIC CENTER: PROPOSED AMENITIES

CONSTRUCTION BUDGET: $3.5 million

SIZE : 3 square miles

MAXIMUM POOL CAPACITY: 400

ADMISSION PRICE: $5-$7

FEATURES:

Up to 7,500 square feet of water

Shade structures

Six-lane lap pool

Water slides and a plunge pool

Toddler wading pool

Children's-themed play unit with tipping bucket

Up to 4,000-square-foot bathhouse with restrooms, showers and lockers

Lifeguard office and break area

50-car parking lot

Commissioned public artwork the city are coming now.” He added, “We want to model the rest of our spraygrounds after Lake Highlands North.”

Ridgewood Park, just south of Northwest Highway, also opened its sprayground in 2006 and it was such a success, the area was flooded with traffic. By 2008 “residents only” parking signs lined nearby streets.

Today our city has set its sights on aquatic centers. Part neighborhood pool that can offer the traditional swimming lessons and camps; part water park with slides and other fun features, the new designs aspire to entice families looking for all the bells and whistles while also filling a basic community need.

The city has money to sink into the effort, thanks to the sale of Elgin B. Robertson Park at Lake Ray Hubbard, which is funding the bulk of Dallas’ $52.8 million aquatic makeover.

In our neighborhood, that includes $3.5 million worth of construction at Lake Highlands North pool (adjacent to the famous sprayground) and, not far away, a $2.6 million facelift for Tietze Park.

Though the design of the new facilities at Lake Highlands North has not been finalized, it likely will become a “neighborhood family aquatic center” with a modern, family-friendly pool and bath house.

Final designs by Kimley-Horn along with Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture are expected by the end of the year, giving the city ample time to hear from residents about what they’d like to see. The city last year and in early 2016 solicited public input via neighborhood meetings. Tree preservation, security, exercise programming for children, seniors and families, and affordable pricing are among the things Lake Highlands residents listed as highly important. Designers aim to begin construction next year and to open the newly refurbished Lake Highlands Neighborhood Family Aquatic Center in May 2019.