On its surface, the story of the closure of Nashville’s city pools in the 1960s is a straightforward travesty — two black men tried to swim in the Centennial Park pool and in response the Parks Department shut down all the city park pools.
But, damn if Erin Tocknell over at the Bitter Southerner doesn’t take this straightforward story of two brave men’s efforts to desegregate the Centennial Park pool and turn it into a really interesting meditation on the history of Nashville and what it means to navigate this landscape:
“Of the 22 municipal swimming pools Nashville operated at the time, seven were designated for blacks. One of those was in Hadley Park, barely a mile from the Freedom Rides office. Built in 1947, Hadley’s pool had three diving boards, ample space for free swimming and laps, a pool deck for lounging, a veranda for shade, and a grill that served burgers and hot dogs. It was the place to be on summer days. Lillard and Walker gathered their towels, their swimming trunks, and some change for the admission fee.
"As they walked to the corner of Jefferson and 21st Avenue, they passed famed Civil Rights attorney Alexander Looby’s house, which had been bombed in the midst of sit-ins the previous spring. Hadley Park was west of Jefferson Street, but Lillard and Walker turned south instead. If they were going to swim that day, they were going to do it at Centennial Park — Nashville’s premiere public space — a park with a full-scale replica of the Parthenon right in the middle.”
I think especially important is her discussion with “Minnie,” a white woman who lived through the closing of the pools and who talks to Tocknell about how racism and classism fed each other during that time period, but who is also uncomfortable with dredging up the past and unhappy thinking of the wrongs perpetrated by her relatives and their peers.
It’s in “Minnie”’s story that you see an ugly truth that is hard for white Nashville to look square in the face. I think everyone gets direct racism — I’m going to do this shitty thing to you because you’re different than me and I want to feel better than you. But look at what “Minnie” knows about white Nashville during that time period — they’d hurt their own children if it meant they could be certain segregation would stand. They’d deny their kids public pools in order to ensure black people couldn’t also enjoy them. That’s a terrible thing to have to know about your parents — that they’d hurt you to hate someone.
But those decision-makers are dead now and we don’t have to live in the city as they rendered it. In fact, in so very many ways, we already don’t live in their Nashville. It would be lovely to have more public pools and it would mean a lot symbolically to return pools to the neighborhoods that lost them. It’d be especially meaningful to bring a pool back to Centennial Park and let’s do it while Lillard and Walker are still alive and invite them to come swim in it.
Think about it. What if they were the first ones in?
