Film by Hamilton Ward
August 21, 2020
One June 19, 1961, the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, drained every swimming pool in town. The papers said it was for budget reasons but, according to civil rights activist Kwame Leo Lillard, the real reason was that he and some other Freedom Riders wandered over to Centennial Park the day before, “on a lark” and asked to take a dip in the public pool. They had the 25 cents that it cost for pool entry. The pools were not closed because of money. They were shut down in Nashville and across the South in the late 1950s and 1960s because of racism.
Empty and repurposed swimming pools still dot the Southern landscape with little public acknowledgement of why they were drained. At the beginning of the summer we shared Drew Lanham’s story about his elders who went Swimming With Seals when the humans got kicked out of the water. Now, as the hot summer days drag on The Bitter Southerner shares this original film by Hamilton Ward with remembrances from south Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Albany, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida.
This 16-minute documentary looks at empty, paved-over pools as "lost monuments to racism" and listens to the voices of those who remember the high price people were willing to pay both to fight against or maintain racial divides. J.T. Johnson and Al Lingo remember being doused in pool chemicals by an angry hotel manager and being locked up in a St. Augustine jail wearing only swimming trunks. Also, more white children drowned after these closings without safe places to swim. As Lillard put it, “We get nothing from denying evil.” The South never had a Truth and Reconciliation commission like they had in South Africa. A film like this helps us all look at and face the truth.
Hamilton Ward, a Charlotte, N.C. based photographer made this film with a grant from the Southern Documentary Fund. Ward hopes this film will inspire "real conversations" about race and recreation in public spaces, both then and now. We hope so, too!
The Bitter Southerner Crew
Hamilton Young Ward is a filmmaker and photographer based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Ward's work explores the preservation of folk tales in the old south along with the decay of oral storytelling in the modern age. Ward uses both photographic and experimental film techniques to address these issues in his work, which has been shown across the Southeastern United States. He's a Cinema Carolina Award winner as well as having been awarded the Southern Documentary Fund grant.
