Black swim programs battle cross-currents of history — and Covid-19
Plus: Your guide to the week's big stories — Bars reopen and bigger crowds allowed at gyms, concert venues and sporting events; Winston gets new 4-year contract; Curbside liquor may be coming
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Mahogany Mermaids upend decades of stereotypes by teaching Black adults to swim, but Charlotte’s minority youth swim team is fighting to stay afloat
By Tim Whitmire
Growing up in the 1960s on Charlotte’s north side, Nadine Ford was ignorant of the notion that — as she puts it now — “Black people don’t swim.”
Public swimming pools were a flashpoint for desegregation, particularly in the South. In 1960, the then-chairman of Charlotte’s parks commission was quoted saying that “of all public facilities, swimming pools put the tolerance of the white people to the test,” arguing that pools had to be closed to Black swimmers to protect them from angry whites.
“Everybody in my family swam,” Ford recalls. “When I went to (the public pool at) Double Oaks, all the people there were Black. When I went to Girl Scout camp, when I went to Camp Thunderbird, the Black people there — they all swam.”
Decades later, Ford, now 58, is the founder and leader of Mahogany Mermaids, a two-year-old U.S. Masters Swimming team that focuses on teaching Black women (and some men) to swim for survival, enjoyment and fitness. The program has won national attention and grassroots financial support as Ford considers how to expand further into the Black community.
The Mahogany Mermaids, a Charlotte group that teaches Black women (and some men) to swim, training recently at Fairmeadows Swim & Racquet Club in the SouthPark area. (Photos courtesy of Doug Miller.)
It’s a remarkable success story amid a pandemic that has had hugely negative social and economic effects on Black and other minority communities. And it’s a story that contrasts sharply with that of Charlotte’s Black-focused youth swim program, Queen City Dolphins (QCD).
Battered by back-and-forth shutdowns, remote schooling and repeated closings at their publicly owned home pool, QCD — for 16 years, the city’s only year-round youth swim program for children from minority and low-income families — is fighting for survival. The battle exposes the fragility of the team’s progress against decades of racism and stereotyping about Black swimming.
Many QCD parents pulled their children from the swim program last spring during the pandemic’s initial lockdowns and have not returned. Cratering revenues put the club on shaky financial ground, to the point that founder Rodney Sellars considered a complete shutdown. He said the club survived only thanks to a loan that came in the third round of the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
Sellars, 55, a Winston-Salem native, founded QCD in 2005 with a focus on teaching the sport to Black kids. While other local year-round swim teams focus on qualifying top athletes for competitive sectional and national meets, Sellars and his staff worry about the baseline experience for all the swimmers: “Teach ’em to swim all four strokes, maybe make a state cut,” he said, adding that with the right grades, swimming can be a boost that gets his athletes into college.
A 2017 USA Swimming study found that 64% of Black children had low to no swimming ability. A 2014 Centers for Disease Control report said an 11-year-old Black child was 10 times more likely to drown than a white child of the same age.
Sellars was a swimmer and diver in his college days at UNC Charlotte and later a founding staff member at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center (MCAC), where he worked until his retirement in 2019.
On a recent 40-degree night, a dozen QCD swimmers ranging in age from 8 to 17 warmed up with 400 yards of individual medley under the winter tent that covers the pool at Fairmeadows Swim & Racquet Club in south Charlotte.
Sellars watched, calling out instructions and acknowledging that this was an improvement over last spring, when the initial three-month pandemic shutdown pushed everyone completely out of the water.
“I thought it was over,” he said. In February 2020, QCD was 45 swimmers strong. But by May, just eight kids were showing up for dry-land workouts. “I thought we were going to have to go out of business.”
When pools re-opened in June, attendance rebounded to about 25 swimmers and reprieve came from the PPP loan. But the team’s status remains shaky, and the abrupt January shutdown of the MCAC — the Dolphins’ home pool — forced the remaining Dolphins athletes to begin their winter weeknight practices at 8 p.m. at Fairmeadows.
Like Sellars, the Mermaids’ Ford swam, albeit recreationally, in her college days at N.C. State and UNC Charlotte but drifted away from the sport until returning to train for a 2014 triathlon.
That sparked a mission: get back in the pool regularly and do it with her girlfriends. Some of them, she discovered, didn’t even know how to swim.
“In order (for them) to learn it, I had to teach it,” said Ford, a senior environmental specialist with the Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Department. She studied YouTube coaching videos and started shadowing local swim coaches like Sellars, Doug Miller, Heather Hageman and Amy Monroe. She got certified as an Adult Learn to Swim (ALTS) instructor and a masters coach.
By 2019, Ford’s loose group had become a movement with a purpose: “trying to get Black folks swimming.” That year, Mahogany Mermaids affiliated as a club under U.S. Masters Swimming (USMS).
Nadine Ford (center, in white towel) swam recreationally during college but drifted away from the sport until she began training for a 2014 triathlon. When she discovered that some of her friends didn’t know how to swim, it inspired her to start a swim program geared toward Black women.
Now, Ford and eight other coaches guide athletes through the full swimming journey. There are Mermaids at all different swim stages, from putting their faces in the water and blowing bubbles to treading water for a minute and swimming 25 yards (the American Red Cross standard for adult water safety) through learning the four basic strokes to racing techniques like flip turns.
NBC Nightly News did a story on the Mermaids last fall and the club is seeking a $5,000 grant that would fund additional programs.
Sellars and Ford both have support from within the Charlotte swim community. Aquatic Team of Mecklenburg (ATOM) head coach Shaynah Jerrell is sharing the lanes her club rents at Fairmeadows so the Dolphins can stay in the water while the MCAC is closed. (The county said this week that the MCAC will reopen on Monday.)
Ford wants the Mermaids to upend decades of stereotypes about Blacks and swimming that she believes many Blacks have internalized.
“I want Black people to understand that Jim Crow and post-Jim Crow is a blip (in our aquatic story),” Ford said. “It’s a tragic blip, but we need to focus on what happened before Jim Crow ... when we were aquatic people. Wherever we were as indigenous people, we swam. It wasn’t until we were disconnected from the pools that we became disconnected from that part of our lives.”
Tim Whitmire is a contributing editor of The Ledger, co-founder of F3 Nation and founder of CXN Advisory, which supports organizational leaders in goal-setting and execution. This article is part of the occasional series “The High Cost of Covid-19,” a collaboration examining the economic effects of Covid in local minority communities. It is produced by The Ledger, WFAE, La Noticia and QcityMetro and is funded in part by the Facebook Journalism Project.
Today’s supporting sponsor is Soni Brendle:
This week in Charlotte: Statewide Covid restrictions eased, more CMS students head back to classrooms, elections could be delayed
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Politics
Possible elections delay ahead: (WFAE) North Carolina’s top elections administrator is asking state lawmakers to move all of this year’s municipal elections to 2022 and to move next year’s primaries from March to May because of delayed census data. Census numbers play a crucial role in how legislative districts are redrawn every decade. Data was supposed to be available next month, but the federal government says it won’t be ready to be released until September because of delays caused by Covid. In North Carolina, the General Assembly decides when to hold the elections.
Education
Winston’s gets new 4-year contract: (Observer) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Earnest Winston was granted a new 4-year contract by the school board Tuesday, with a 3% raise that increases his pay to $288,400. It also adds a 24-month severance. Winston became superintendent in August 2019. Board chair Elyse Dashew praised Winston’s management during the Covid crisis: “I see that rapport and that trust that you have with the staff of CMS. And I think that part of why we’ve held together ... through this pandemic is because of your integrity and your style of leadership.” The board voted 8-1 for the new contract, with Sean Strain being the lone “no” vote.
Return to in-person school: (WFAE) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ middle- and high-school students began returning to classrooms on Monday for the first time since last March. CMS administrators say they may bring forward a plan that would get the third rotation of middle and high schoolers back into buildings for more days. Currently, two rotations attend in-person school for 23 days, while one rotation attends for just 16 days.
Local news
Covid restrictions eased: (Ledger) Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday eased North Carolina’s Covid restrictions on a range of businesses and events and eliminated a 10 p.m. curfew. Restaurants, breweries and wineries, retail stores, gyms, museums, aquariums, barbers and other personal care businesses, pools and outdoor amusement parks are now allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Bars and taverns, indoor amusement parks, movie theaters, outdoor amphitheaters, concert venues and indoor sports arenas are allowed to open at 30% capacity with a cap of 250 people. More capacity is also allowed at indoor arenas and big outdoor stadiums.
Drive-thru liquor? (Ledger 🔒) The Mecklenburg County ABC Board is examining the possibility of online ordering and pickup for alcohol. According to a planning document obtained by The Ledger, the board has been in contact with other ABC boards around the state about the idea, contacted a tech company about creating a platform and identified five stores that would test curbside pickup service.
Business
Quick Belk bankruptcy: (Bloomberg News) As expected, Belk filed for bankruptcy protection this week and emerged from it a day later, under a reorganization plan that wiped away debt and attracted new investment. But analysts have said the Charlotte-based department store chain will have to do more if it wants to survive in a tough climate for big retailers.
Sports
Hornets second-half schedule: (NBA) The NBA announced the second half of its season, and the Hornets have 37 regular-season games, including visits to Charlotte from LeBron James and the Lakers on April 13 and from Zion Williamson and the Pelicans on May 9. The Hornets said this week they are studying how to allow fans back to the Spectrum Center under new Covid guidelines that permit about 3,000 fans to attend.
Good reads
Hopeful about ‘the burbs’: (UNC Charlotte Urban Institute) One year after he and his growing family traded their duplex in Dilworth for a roomier house in the Charlotte suburbs, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute assistant director Ely Portillo shares his reflections on some improvements that would help “the burbs” be more urban and less auto-dependent.
How Piedmont took flight: (Our State) Charlotte writer Elizabeth Leland looks back 70 years after Piedmont Airlines first took flight about how the airline fueled the growth of Charlotte Douglas International Airport and the surrounding region and changed the landscape of aviation through the decades.
Tent City political drama: (WBTV) Reporter David Hodges talked to a half-dozen local elected leaders for the real behind-the-scenes scoop on how the clearing out of Tent City went down. Two of the most gossipy bits: 1) There’s “bad blood” between City Manager Marcus Jones and County Manager Dena Diorio after the two publicly sparred last week; and 2) Diorio sent a snippy email to close out an exchange with county commissioner Laura Meier — who is one of her bosses — that read, “Laura, Please let us do our job. Thanks.”
College ‘amenities arms race’: (Town & Country) Writer Ron Lieber of Town & Country Magazine looks at the “amenities arms race” at colleges nationwide through the lens of High Point University, with its 5 swimming pools, golf carts for visitors and student union concierge services. He asks whether the effects of 2020 will force colleges to rethink how they sell themselves. “So perhaps in 2021, with the economy still shaky as many of us await our vaccine jabs, a solid credential plus a few creature comforts are more than enough for plenty of families. Meanwhile, you probably shouldn’t count on schools that make a habit of catering to students from high-income families to get much cheaper,” Lieber writes.
How Charlotte funds the arts: (Charlotte magazine) Charlotte magazine editor and longtime arts critic Andy Smith throws up a caution flare about Charlotte City Council’s proposal to route its arts funding away from the Arts & Science Council and directly toward certain arts groups in the hopes of, in the words of some city council members, seeing more of a return on its investment. “It’s about deciding how much you’re willing to invest in the difficult, sometimes fruitless pursuit of being an interesting and creative city,” Smith writes.
This week in The Ledger
Few details on transit poll: (Friday) A survey that the city’s planning director touted as showing widespread support for increased transit funding might not actually show that. It was donated by a pro-transit group, and a city spokesman said the city is not providing any additional information about the poll’s questions, answers or methodology. The city is hoping to use the poll results to persuade legislators to allow a vote on raising the county’s sales tax to fund light rail and other transit initiatives.
Cold-weather blackouts: (Friday 🔒) Could North Carolina ever be plunged into freezing darkness because of severe weather — like what happened last week in Texas? A conversation with the Public Staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission, which represents utility consumers in the state.
Trefoil transformation: (Wednesday 🔒) Everyone is pivoting during the pandemic, even Girl Scouts selling cookies. With door-to-door sales not a viable option this year because of Covid, scouts are shifting sales to their online Digital Cookie platform and promoting links on videos and jingles. There’s even a deal with GrubHub for cookie delivery.
Charlotte development questions: (Wednesday 🔒) We started an occasional feature this week in which we answer questions from Ledger readers about development and construction 🚧 around town. First up: What’s going on with the land across from Ardrey Kell High School in Ballantyne? You asked, we answered. Do you have a burning question? As we said Wednesday, “There’s no rezoning request we can’t track down; no land sale we can’t sniff out.”
Charlotte Douglas International Orr-port: (Monday) Aviation writer Ted Reed makes the case for honoring longtime airport director Jerry Orr, who oversaw the airport’s growth into a major economic engine for Charlotte.
Re-examining doomsday predictions: (Monday) Remember that prediction that hospitals would be so crowded with Covid patients that they would lack the capacity to treat patients? We look back and see how that one panned out.
Internet pricing mystery: (Wednesday 🔒) Spectrum recently sent two advertisements for the same internet package to the same address on the same day — and one was $20 a month lower than the other. Why found out why.
New building: (Friday 🔒) A new mixed-use building is being planned for a high-visibility section of South Boulevard.
Cloudy with a chance of bumpin’: (Friday 🔒) With Covid restrictions easing, the social forecast for South End calls for crowds, our panel of millennials tells us.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Reporting intern: David Griffith