What I’m Reading: Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters – 24 in a series – “…the coming proliferation of cases played out in Pasadena, California, at Brookside Plunge, the local municipal pool….”

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“In the early 1940s the NAACP responded to black consumers’ anger over swimming pool and beach segregation with a series of lawsuits that began to bear some fruit. An early indication of the coming proliferation of cases played out in Pasadena, California, at Brookside Plunge, the local municipal pool.

In 1930 the city reinstated its initial segregation policy by opening its facilities to African Americans one day a week, Tuesday, which was called International Day. At the end of each Tuesday the pool was drained, cleaned, and refilled for use by whites. Blacks protested the policy throughout the 1930s, and in 1939 the NAACP filed a formal lawsuit after six black men were turned away from the pool on a Sunday. The city manager fired Jackie Robinson’s brother, Mack, and other black city workers in retaliation for the lawsuit.”

From Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America by Victoria W. Wolcott

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America by Victoria W. Wolcott

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