Pool to Minority Kids: You Can't Swim Here

Suburban Club Accused of Racism For Rescinding Pool Privileges; State to Investigate Actions

(CBS/AP)  A Philadelphia area day camp says a private swim club made racist comments about their campers and then cancelled their swimming privileges.

The swim club says they ran out of room.

Sixty-five mostly minority children from Philadelphia's Creative Steps day camp spent June 29 cooling off at the private Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. It's where they were planning to swim every Monday through mid-August.

But the first time they showed up, 11-year-old Marcus Allen says, it was obvious he and the other campers - children in kindergarten through seventh grade - weren't welcomed by some club members.

"They were saying, like, they didn't want us here, and they were saying that they were afraid we might do something to their children and trash some of their belongings. And they were also saying, like, 'Oh, we don't want these people here and how did they even get here?'"

In fact, Creative Steps had paid the club $1,950 for use of the pool facilities.

Creative Steps camp director (and Marcus' mother) Althea Wright said she was alerted about half an hour into their session. "The children came running down the hill saying, 'Miss Wright, Miss Wright, there are people making remarks saying they don't want those black kids and what are we doing here?'" Wright told CBS "Early Show" anchor Maggie Rodriguez. " I said, 'Who is saying this?' And they pointed towards the top of the hill.

"So I went up to the top, and I started addressing some of the derogatory comments that were made, and [club president John] Duesler was sitting there as well, and he said, 'Althea, Althea, don't worry about it. I'll handle it. I'll handle it.'"

Some club members removed their children from the pool and stood around with their arms folded, according to Wright, who said, "Only three members left their children in the pool with us."

Two days later, Wright received a call from the club's board president saying that the board had changed its mind about allowing the kids to be visit the club.

CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports that the camp's nearly two-thousand dollar check was refunded.

"He gave me no reason at all" for the decision, Wright said. But, she added, while they were at the club some of the club members were shouting that "they were going to make sure that we did not return there at all."

Dr. Duesler, the Valley Club president, told Philadelphia TV station WTXF that several club members complained because the children "fundamentally changed the atmosphere" at the pool but that the complaints didn't involve race.

"Unfortunately . . . we underestimated the capacity of our facilities and realized that we could not accommodate the number of children from these camps," Valley Club said in a released statement.

Wright, however, does not accept the reason, and says e-mail exchanges prove the club knew exactly how many children were coming.

This incident is making waves throughout the nation's swimming community.

Cullen Jones, an African American gold medal swimmer heads up Make a Splash, which trains young minority swimmers.

"This is a major setback to see that people are still in the old ways, if you will," Jones said.

On Thursday the pool was closed, its front gate locked. About two dozen protesters, most of them white, held signs and chanted slogans including, "Jim Crow swims here!"

Amy Goldman is a club member and joined because she thought it was so welcoming.

"I'm embarrassed and ashamed that a pool would do this to a group of young kids who were very respectful and well behaved," she told CBS News.

Marcus said the experience gave him very mixed feelings: "I was mad, I was angry, I was upset."

When Rodriguez asked Marcus what he hoped people would learn from their experience, he said, "I hope the lesson will be to teach people that everybody is like the same and that you shouldn't treat people differently just because [of] a difference between you and them. Like you have a different color skin or you look different, that doesn't mean that you're different from them. And that you shouldn't make fun of them."

Wright said Girard College, a boarding school for poor children in first through 12th grades, has offered to host the camp children for the summer.

On Thursday the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission said it will immediately open an investigation into the accusations of racial discrimination at the Valley Club.

"The rule of law in Pennsylvania is equal opportunity for all, regardless of race," chairman Stephen A. Glassman said Thursday in a written statement.

"Allegedly, this group was denied the use of a pool based on their race," Glassman said. "If the allegations prove to be true, this is illegal discrimination in Pennsylvania."

Wright said that some parents are "weighing their options" on legal action.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People requested the Human Relations Commission's investigation.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., issued a statement calling the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said he was looking into the matter.

Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, the governing body for the U.S. swim team, was stunned at the accusations.

"This is the sort of thing you'd hear about in 1966, during the height of the civil rights movement, not in 2009, and not in the City of Brotherly Love, of all places," he said.

[TheMasses0009]

Since it's a private pool, they should be allowed to let whoever they want in and change their mind at any time. They refunded the money - end of story.

[hamiltongrad]

The pool should be closed down. What a disgrace.

[sarahtolkien]

This was a situation of the rich discriminating against the poor NOT race. I have taught for the last 3 years at an inner city school and we saw this time and time again on field trips. We'd get looks like "are those kids going to behave?" Guess what? Some of them didn't. Were they all black? No. Lets do an experiment. Take a group of mostly white poor kids from a trailer park with torn up stained t-shirts and dirty faces and put them in the same pool. You're going to get the same remarks and the same complaints. One of my white girls last year had lice at least 5 times and came in with the same clothes several times a week with dirty hair. I NEVER saw that with any of my black kids and practically every one of the children at this school was part of the same socio-economic status. We are a classicist society whether or not we want to admit it. Most of us naturally have a bias against people who are poorer than us. Is it right? No. Would I want to go have dinner at the home of my student who had lice 5 times last year? Probably not. Sometimes our biases protect us and sometimes they separate us from good experiences and richer lives.

[shadys-mom]

I agree with "Poetic Adaption". It may not be the best sort of person to be a snob, but this is America, the land of the free - or until Obama destroys that too! It's a private club and they didn't want a bunch of kids there - doesn't matter what colors they are. It may not be very hospitable of them, but they gave the money back. I think everyone is so very TIRED of "the race card". It only makes the matter worse and is used for absolutely every situation. GET A LIFE PEOPLE!!!!!!! Just because you are black or white or green or red or tan or purple - It's a free country and everyone doesn't have to like you! I grew up and live in the southwest and I don't like Mexicans (with good cause) - so sue me!!!!!

[Hovi1768]

There are times when the race card is played by politicians,
the media for ratings & gains.
This clearly is not one of those cases.
This is as blatant as it gets.

I would bet my house that the situation went down like this.
Someone, or several someone's with some clout @ the club went to management & power-played them with threats of rescinding memberships.
Told them basically, get rid of the undesireables or else.
The club quickly looked at the money vs principles thing, & we know which side won.

It's like the Mos-Def track Mathematics

"This is business, no faces just lines and statistics
from your phone, your zip code, to S-S-I digits
The system break man child and women into figures
Two columns for who is, and who ain't ******."

[stopmakinexcuses]

i am noncaucasian ,& i am sick of ignorant and benighled people who think is acceptable to to call white people "white trash" but god forbid if anyone calls black people a name. stop be hypocrites!!!!!!!

[toldyouso29]

Well, one thing is for certain, with the publicity and locked doors and the picketing and the national notoriety--NO ONE of any race will be swimming or enjoying the atmosphere now.....

[Thalia-9]

absolutely pathetic and absurd...the people who pulled their kids from the pool should be refunded their dues and kicked out of the club, the president of the club should be replaced, and if it were myself holding membership there, I'd pull it and go elsewhere - sick, sad and wrong...reminds me of Rosa Parks - those poor children...hopefully they'll rebound with the understanding someday that this select group of people are nothing but the empitome of scum - right now it's a group of children who are incredibly wounded -if any of you club 'members' responsible for the action are reading this, go F yourself...and don't forget about kharma cause it's headed your way like a firestorm.

[rwassel]

"Education is not solely the responsibility of the educator."

Oh well then I would assume, since all education is equal, and that the responsbility lies with the student, you would have NO PROBLEM sending your bright, articulate child to an inner-city school with a crumbling infra-structure and underpiad teachers, right?

Now who's shooting themself in the foot.

[kennergirl]

While it's unfortunate that the head of the Valley Club took such drastic measures apparently his choices were poor from the onset. If it is a "private club" he could have turned down their money from the start when the call first came in. But he didn't and once he saw the attitudes of the other members of the club he again made another poor choice to follow up his first one, by asking the campers to leave. I don't believe anyone should be forced to be around a person or persons they don't want to be around. Granted, it sounds as if some (ok lots) of the club members are crude people to make statements to a bunch of kids like that but some people live hardfast to the rule that they don't want to be around someone different than themselves (trust me I've worked for people like that). Now you have a bunch of kids with hurt feelings, a camp director that is angry and a private club with a lot of explaining to do.