In A Segregated D.C., He Learned To Swim In The Anacostia River

Image credit: DCist.

From DCist:

This Saturday, for the first time in more than 50 years, D.C. residents will have a chance to take a dip in the Anacostia River. For just about everyone, it will be their first time swimming in the river — after all, there has been a swim ban in place since the early 1970s.*

But it won’t be Dennis Chestnut’s first time in the river.

“My first time jumping into the Anacostia was actually a result of a challenge by the bigger kids. They said, jump in,” Chestnut recalls. “I jumped in, and here I am to prove that I made it to the side.”

This was in the 1950s, a time when D.C.’s public pools were segregated. In Chestnut’s neighborhood in Ward 7, east of the river, he says there were no pools at all that Black people could use. Even when pools officially desegregated, Black swimmers weren’t always welcome.

“The access may have been made available, but a lot of the mindsets of people had not changed. You know, you could change the law on the books, but the behaviors, they kind of changed over time.”

*Update from DCist:

The event was cancelled late Friday morning, according to organizers, due to incoming extreme weather that is forecast to hit the region this weekend.

They says there is no new set date for the swim at this time, however  it would likely be sometime in late spring of 2024.