{"id":7152,"date":"2011-04-25T14:31:56","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T18:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=7152"},"modified":"2011-07-22T14:30:46","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T18:30:46","slug":"t-m-berry-project-desegregating-cincinnati-pools-or-how-little-girls-made-a-big-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2011\/04\/t-m-berry-project-desegregating-cincinnati-pools-or-how-little-girls-made-a-big-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"T. M. Berry Project: Desegregating Cincinnati Pools or How Little Girls Made a Big Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Laura Laugle<\/em><\/p>\n

\"T.<\/a>Is there anything better on a hot summer\u2019s day than splashing around in the pool with friends? Maybe adding ice cream and a beach ball or two to the mix would improve the day but the pool would still be the main event. In the summer of 1950 Faith and Gail Berry, aged eleven and seven respectively, considered themselves to be extremely fortunate – they lived on Fairfax Avenue in Walnut Hills just a block away from Owl\u2019s Nest pool. I can see the girls now – their summertime plans probably closely mirroring my own and those of my classmates forty-some-odd years later. Chores would be done as quickly as possible so that the cool, dewy mornings could be spent playing kickball in the backyard and roller skating in the street with other neighborhood children. After lunch there would be the mad dash to change into swimming gear followed by what should be a short walk to the municipal pool made longer by those inexorable needs to find and drag sticks along sidewalks and fences and to inspect the various creepy crawlies found along the way.\u00a0 Finally, the heat of the afternoon sun would be softened by diving, dunking, swimming and splashing in the cool water. So it should be for all children.\u00a0 But for the Berry girls there was a problem.<\/p>\n

Owl\u2019s Nest pool, like most Cincinnati Pools of the time, was segregated. Although the Cincinnati Recreation Commission had never authorized it, Owl\u2019s Nest had made Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays \u201cwhites only\u201d days and Tuesdays and Thursdays \u201ccoloreds only.\u201d According to Gail Berry West, pictured above on a pony with her older sister Faith, the girls just couldn\u2019t understand why they couldn\u2019t \"T.<\/a>go to the pool. \u201cWe must have asked continually and finally our dear Mother had had enough of the asking.\u201d So, on June 20, 1950 Johnnie Mae Berry and neighbor Mrs. Edmund Oxley took Faith, Gail and Mrs. Oxley\u2019s daughter and niece to Owl\u2019s Nest pool for a swim. Gail remembers \u201csome white children were reluctantly pulled out of the water and others tried to stay in – much to their parents’ dismay.\u00a0This continued on other white days when we went to the pool\u2026\u201d One incident which Gail remembers with particular horror is detailed in the article to the right. Rev. Edmund Oxley, then rector at St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Church had molasses thrown on him. \u201cThat is what I remember was certainly distressing to us all.\u00a0 As children, we could not believe that someone could pour syrup on a man of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, just as with all discriminatory practices which came before, all those which came after and all those which have yet to come, segregation at the pool could not last long once it was challenged by those brave enough to stand up for themselves. \u201cI also remember some shouting, chanting, etc, but we children continued to swim and enjoy the water.\u00a0 My memory is that, of course, we continued to go again on “colored” days and “white” days and very soon, we were swimming with white children in the water and having a good time with all or so it seemed and the days were no longer considered white or colored days – but just days of the week when all could swim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"T.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In 2010, the University of Cincinnati Libraries received a $61,287 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the Archives and Records Administration to fully process the Theodore M. Berry Collection in the Archives & Rare Books Library.\u00a0 All information and opinions published on the Berry project website and in the blog entries are those of the individuals involved in the grant project and do not reflect those of the National Archives and Records Administration. \u00a0We gratefully acknowledge the support of NARA. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"T.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Laura Laugle Is there anything better on a hot summer\u2019s day than splashing around in the pool with friends? Maybe adding ice cream and a beach ball or two to the mix would improve the day but the pool … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[53],"class_list":["post-7152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-cincinnati-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}