{"id":15168,"date":"2026-07-30T08:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=15168"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:10:09","slug":"nearly-100-years-ago-philadelphias-inez-patterson-integrated-pools-and-encouraged-other-black-girls-to-swim-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/nearly-100-years-ago-philadelphias-inez-patterson-integrated-pools-and-encouraged-other-black-girls-to-swim-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 100 years ago, Philadelphia\u2019s Inez Patterson integrated pools and encouraged other Black girls to swim\u00a0too"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Black
Many public pools were segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Afro American Newspapers\/Gado via Getty Images<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I first encountered her when my sister and I visited an exhibit at the Fairmount Water Works in 2022 that was called: \u201cPOOL: A Social History of Segregation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the black-and-white photograph, a young Black woman named Inez Robie Patterson appeared to be captured right before she dived off the side of a pool wall. Her triceps were flexed, arms straight back with palms facing the ceiling. Her knees were bent, and her toes touched a thin, black-tiled line on the pool deck. Her hair was neatly covered in a white swim cap. Her eyebrows were beautifully thick, and her mouth formed a slight smile. Her white swimsuit had a lifeguard corps insignia, signaling her expertise in water safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Black woman, swim instructor, lifeguard and lifelong swimmer, I found myself drawn to her. My doctoral research in African American literature, history and environmental thought led me to study what I call Patterson\u2019s \u201caquatic life\u201d: the written and photographic record of her relationship to swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to know: Who was this beautiful Black mermaid, and why was swimming so vital to her? How had she lifted her community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I waded through the digital archive of The Philadelphia Tribune, the city\u2019s oldest historically Black newspaper, to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A role model for Black girl swimmers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1911, Patterson\u2019s love of sports began at an early age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot
Inez Patterson attended Temple University and was later inducted into their Women\u2019s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1987. Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center. Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia, PA.<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a girl, she excelled in hockey, basketball, and track and field. As a teenager at West Philadelphia High in the mid-1920s, she sharpened her swimming skills and entered a swim meet at the McCoach Recreational Center \u2013 now the Marian Anderson rec center \u2013 in South Philadelphia in September 1927. According to The Philadelphia Tribune, she took home six first-place finishes: in the underwater swim, the side stroke, the standing front dive, the running front dive, the swan dive and the front somersault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camaraderie was a priority for Patterson. Wherever I encountered her in the archive, whether walking through the Fairmount Water Works exhibit or reading old issues of the Tribune, she seemed to be looking forward to the progress being made by Black girl swimmers and the community they formed and shared in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young sports columnist on a mission<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At 18 years old in 1929, Patterson started her Girls in Sports news column in the Tribune, where she encouraged other Black girls to join her in the pool. Although she feared that Black girls in West Philadelphia had little interest in swimming, she soon learned her community had \u201csome young aspirants that show bright prospects in the swimming world.\u201d In October 1929, she wrote: \u201cI want to compliment these \u2018little girls\u2019 on their success and I hope they will continue in this comparatively new sport for women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other editions of Girls in Sports, Patterson encouraged the Black West Philadelphia community to attend local swim meets and support the girls as they make \u201cwonderful showings\u201d in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also made a convincing case directly to Black girls in West Philly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are many reasons why you should join \u2026 first of all you have the honor of being a member of the first \u2018Colored Swimming Club\u2019 in West Philly High, second, you will learn to swim if you are a beginner, and if you are advanced you will learn life-saving; third, you will develop yourself physically and add another popular sport to your list, and fourth, you can gain athletic credit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading her column, I imagined what it must have felt like to have been a teenage Black girl speaking directly to other Black girls and carving out space for the first \u201cColored Swimming Club\u201d at West Philadelphia High.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Newspaper
A Philadelphia Tribune article from 1942 reports on Inez Patterson becoming the first Black woman to become a U.S. swimming official. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Tribune Media Group<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Integrating Temple University\u2019s swim team<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After graduating high school, Patterson went on to integrate Temple University\u2019s women\u2019s swim team. She refused to swim during the hourlong \u201ccolored\u201d practice time. Being the only Black woman on the team, she insisted on swimming whenever her white teammates swam and being \u201ctoo busy\u201d to swim during the segregated hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUp to this time, no colored girls had taken part in any swim meets (at Temple),\u201d Patterson told the Baltimore Afro-American in 1934 about her experience at the university. \u201cThe purpose of (the swim meet) was to foster intercollegiate spirit among the students so, \u2018Why shouldn\u2019t I go?\u2019 I asked myself. Out of 500 girls present I was the only colored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words demonstrate the righteous defiance in her personality and aquatic life. The pool was hers, too. Why shouldn\u2019t it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking new barriers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As I continued my journey through The Philadelphia Tribune archive, I learned of another local Black woman swimmer: Anne Marques Garrott.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garrott was inducted into the Belmont-Southwest YWCA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989 at the age of 75. An article about her induction detailed how Garrott, like Patterson, insisted upon being in the pool. She entered swim meets \u201cwherever she traveled\u201d and taught naval cadets how to swim at the University of Southern California, despite the pervasiveness of racism at USC against Black swimmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After crediting her parents for encouraging her to swim, Garrott thanked another mentor: Inez Patterson. She said Patterson \u201cwas one of the best-educated Black women I ever met\u201d and also \u201ca powerful swimmer (who) broke a lot of barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inez Patterson passed away in 1944 from complications of a ruptured pelvic abscess. Though her life was cut short, she made a major impact on Black aquatic culture in Philadelphia. At 31 years old in 1942, she made history once more as the first Black woman \u2013 or what the Tribune called a \u201crace girl\u201d \u2013 to become a swimming official with the National Section of Women\u2019s Athletics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black feminist scholar Brittney Cooper writes in \u201cBeyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women\u201d that to be a \u201crace girl\u201d or \u201crace woman\u201d was to be a Black woman \u201cinstitution-builder\u201d and \u201cpublic thinker\u201d who sought the betterment of her people in mind, body and spirit. Patterson\u2019s aquatic life shows us how important the swimming pool was to her and the communities she served, from West Philadelphia High to Temple University, the Southwest Belmont YWCA to the YWCAs in Harlem and Jersey City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Orange-toned
The author during her high school swimming days. Courtesy of Samantha Adams<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

One hundred years after Patterson swam at West Philadelphia High in 1926, I make a routine out of waking up early to swim at my outdoor neighborhood pool in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I pull the swim cap onto my mess of curly hair and fix the goggles to my eyes. I inhale and leap into the cold water. I think of Inez Robie Patterson, and I feel gratitude for her defiant dive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Samantha Adams<\/a>, Ph.D. in English and Women’s & Gender Studies, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first encountered her when my sister and I visited an exhibit at the Fairmount Water Works in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[57,54],"class_list":["post-15168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-racism","tag-swimming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t