Episode Details

The fight for fair access to play

By Kevin Paul

J.T. Johnson sat dripping in his bathing suit, jailed on a hot June day in 1963 after the briefest of swims at the Monson Motor Lodge in balmy St. Augustine, Fla.

Throughout the 1960s, ordinary people, outraged by the indignity of segregation, staged “wade-in” protests at swimming pools and beaches across America. Historian Victoria Wolcott characterizes these leisure spaces as “among the most segregated and fought-over public spaces” during this time, in part because they symbolized belonging in a growing, empowered middle class. Leisure spaces frequented by young people were often subject to the highest levels of scrutiny.