Nile Swim Club: America's First Black-Owned Private Pool

In nineteen fifty-seven, African American families in this Philadelphia area community, shut out of local swim clubs because of their race, organized their neighbors. Three hundred twenty-six bondholders each put in two hundred fifty dollars to buy land and build their own private swim club. When the Nile Swim Club opened in nineteen fifty-nine, it became the first private swimming facility in the United States owned and operated by African Americans.

While the club is open to all who wish to join, it was built specifically to provide aquatic, civic, social, and cultural opportunities that segregation had denied to Black families. The Nile has operated continuously for more than six decades. In a country where the integration of public pools was often met with violence, the Nile represents a different strategy: building your own.