I first encountered her when my sister and I visited an exhibit on the Fairmount Water Works in 2022 that was referred to as: “POOL: A Social History of Segregation.”
In the black-and-white photograph, a younger Black lady named Inez Robie Patterson gave the impression to be captured proper earlier than she dived off the facet of a pool wall. Her triceps have been flexed, arms straight again with palms going through the ceiling. Her knees have been bent, and her toes touched a skinny, black-tiled line on the pool deck. Her hair was neatly lined in a white swim cap. Her eyebrows have been fantastically thick, and her mouth shaped a slight smile. Her white swimsuit had a lifeguard corps insignia, signaling her experience in water security.
As a Black lady, swim teacher, lifeguard and lifelong swimmer, I discovered myself drawn to her. My doctoral analysis in African American literature, historical past and environmental thought led me to review what I name Patterson’s “aquatic life”: the written and photographic report of her relationship to swimming.
I needed to know: Who was this stunning Black mermaid, and why was swimming so important to her? How had she lifted her group?
I waded by the digital archive of The Philadelphia Tribune, the town’s oldest traditionally Black newspaper, to search out out.
A job mannequin for Black lady swimmers
Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1911, Patterson’s love of sports activities started at an early age.
Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center. Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia, PA.
As a lady, she excelled in hockey, basketball, and observe and discipline. As a young person at West Philadelphia High within the mid-Nineteen Twenties, she sharpened her swimming expertise and entered a swim meet on the McCoach Recreational Center – now the Marian Anderson rec middle – in South Philadelphia in September 1927. According to The Philadelphia Tribune, she took dwelling six first-place finishes: within the underwater swim, the facet stroke, the standing entrance dive, the working entrance dive, the swan dive and the entrance somersault.
Camaraderie was a precedence for Patterson. Wherever I encountered her within the archive, whether or not strolling by the Fairmount Water Works exhibit or studying outdated problems with the Tribune, she gave the impression to be wanting ahead to the progress being made by Black lady swimmers and the group they shaped and shared within the water.
A younger sports activities columnist on a mission
At 18 years outdated in 1929, Patterson began her Girls in Sports information column within the Tribune, the place she inspired different Black ladies to affix her within the pool. Although she feared that Black ladies in West Philadelphia had little curiosity in swimming, she quickly discovered her group had “some young aspirants that show bright prospects in the swimming world.” In October 1929, she wrote: “I want to compliment these ‘little girls’ on their success and I hope they will continue in this comparatively new sport for women.”
In different editions of Girls in Sports, Patterson inspired the Black West Philadelphia group to attend native swim meets and assist the ladies as they make “wonderful showings” within the water.
She additionally made a convincing case on to Black ladies in West Philly:
“There are many reasons why you should join … first of all you have the honor of being a member of the first ‘Colored Swimming Club’ 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.”
Reading her column, I imagined what it should have felt prefer to have been a teenage Black lady talking on to different Black ladies and carving out house for the primary “Colored Swimming Club” at West Philadelphia High.
Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Tribune Media Group
Integrating Temple University’s swim group
After graduating highschool, Patterson went on to combine Temple University’s girls’s swim group. She refused to swim throughout the hourlong “colored” observe time. Being the one Black lady on the group, she insisted on swimming each time her white teammates swam and being “too busy” to swim throughout the segregated hour.
“Up to this time, no colored girls had taken part in any swim meets (at Temple),” Patterson informed the Baltimore Afro-American in 1934 about her expertise on the college. “The purpose of (the swim meet) was to foster intercollegiate spirit among the students so, ‘Why shouldn’t I go?’ I asked myself. Out of 500 girls present I was the only colored.”
These phrases reveal the righteous defiance in her persona and aquatic life. The pool was hers, too. Why shouldn’t it’s?
Breaking new boundaries
As I continued my journey by The Philadelphia Tribune archive, I discovered of one other native Black lady swimmer: Anne Marques Garrott.
Garrott was inducted into the Belmont-Southwest YWCA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989 on the age of 75. An article about her induction detailed how Garrott, like Patterson, insisted upon being within the pool. She entered swim meets “wherever she traveled” and taught naval cadets how you can swim on the University of Southern California, regardless of the pervasiveness of racism at USC in opposition to Black swimmers.
After crediting her dad and mom for encouraging her to swim, Garrott thanked one other mentor: Inez Patterson. She stated Patterson “was one of the best-educated Black women I ever met” and likewise “a powerful swimmer (who) broke a lot of barriers.”
Inez Patterson handed away in 1944 from issues of a ruptured pelvic abscess. Though her life was reduce quick, she made a significant influence on Black aquatic tradition in Philadelphia. At 31 years outdated in 1942, she made historical past as soon as extra as the primary Black lady – or what the Tribune referred to as a “race girl” – to grow to be a swimming official with the National Section of Women’s Athletics.
Black feminist scholar Brittney Cooper writes in “Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women” that to be a “race girl” or “race woman” was to be a Black lady “institution-builder” and “public thinker” who sought the betterment of her individuals in thoughts, physique and spirit. Patterson’s aquatic life reveals us how essential 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.
Courtesy of Samantha Adams
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 out of doors neighborhood pool in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I pull the swim cap onto my mess of curly hair and repair the goggles to my eyes. I inhale and leap into the chilly water. I consider Inez Robie Patterson, and I really feel gratitude for her defiant dive.
See web page 45 of the POOL: A Social History of Segregation journal for the picture of Inez Patterson preparaing to dive.
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