US | swimming pool Pool Bans Black Kids? What Decade Is It? Racial discrimination sends us back to the 1950s By Matt Cantor Posted Jul 10, 2009 10:53 AM CDT Copied Nine-year-olds Quadir Preston, right, and Asjah Anthony, second from right, demonstrate in front of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., alongside other supporters. (AP Photo/Mark Stehle) A largely white suburban Philadelphia swim club’s barring of black and Latino campers was so backward “I thought I had fallen into a time warp,” writes Annette John-Hall in the Inquirer. Things like this happened in the 1950s—when singer Dorothy Dandridge booked a room in a Las Vegas hotel, the staff actually drained the pool—but “this isn't 1950s Las Vegas. It's 2009 Philly.” “I didn't understand because we're all the same. We're just a different color,” said one camper. The club’s president told the camp’s head that he’d had to “disinvite” the children because of a member vote, but a member says that’s not true: his fellow poolgoers had recommended a schedule change, not a ban. As the story has gone national, protesters have gathered—but pool management isn’t talking. Read These Next Trump reportedly wants a $230M payout from the DOJ. A well-known nutrition influencer died after a home birth. RFK Jr. offered his wife a fake separation. Trump nominee who said he has 'a Nazi streak' withdraws. Report an error