News: 65 Day Camp Kids Turned Away

I remember once open a time, when the world was divided-a time where everything had a label on it. Blacks Only, Whites Only then two great men took a stand. Although I wasn’t even born yet I still feel like I was there when Martin Luther King gave his speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Then there was Malcolm X a fearless leader who told us “By Any Means Necessary” we will rain as a nation, two great men fighting one battle there own way.

I remember the night Obama took the seat at the white house, I cried not because he was a black man. I cried because the men and woman who died fighting our struggles didn’t die in vein. Those tears streamed for our ancestors-the men and women who fought our battle long before most of us were born. I had just recently watch Roots prior to the election and I have to say, I saw the world in a different light after I was done. Of course I heard about it and watched it as a kid. But I didn’t understand it until I saw it as a adult, Roots made me appreciate the things and freedom we have now more.  We have a right to vote, get a education and be a better person, no one can take that away from you.  So when I heard of 65 camp kids getting turn away from a swimming pool I was floored.

Club president John Duesler told Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children “fundamentally changed the atmosphere” at the pool, but that the complaints didn’t involve race.

Somebody please tell me how can you change a atmosphere??? I hope they get sued and go broke, I’m glad to see another camp stepping up and letting the kids swim there…2010 lets stop this…

HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa. — Members and officials of a private swimming pool in a Philadelphia suburb reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return and pulling other kids out of the water, a day camp director said, and the state is investigating.

The Creative Steps camp in northeast Philadelphia had contracted for the 65 children at the day camp to go each Monday afternoon to The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, camp director Alethea Wright said Thursday. But shortly after they arrived June 29, she said, some black and Hispanic children reported hearing racial comments.

“A couple of the children ran down saying, ‘Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they’re up there saying, ‘What are those black kids doing here?’”

Wright said she went to talk to a group of members at the top of the hill and heard one woman say she would see to it that the group, made of up of children in kindergarten through seventh grade, did not return.

“Some of the members began pulling their children out of the pool and were standing around with their arms folded,” Wright said. “Only three members left their children in the pool with us.”

Several days later, the club refunded the camp’s $1,950 without explanation, said Wright, who added that some parents are “weighing their options” on legal action.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission will immediately investigate, chairman Stephen A. Glassman said Thursday.

“Allegedly, this group was denied the use of a pool based on their race,” Glassman said. “If the allegations prove to be true, this is illegal discrimination in Pennsylvania.”

The investigation was requested by the NAACP. The state NAACP president, J. Whyatt Mondesire, who serves on the Human Relations Commission, said in the statement that the commission can hold the club accountable if it is found to have discriminated against the campers.

“The law simply does not allow discrimination based on race,” he said.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., issued a statement calling the allegations “extremely disturbing” and said he was looking into the matter.

Club president John Duesler told Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children “fundamentally changed the atmosphere” at the pool, but that the complaints didn’t involve race.

The club’s telephone message system was full, and a message could not be left by The Associated Press; Duesler did not return calls to his home. The gated club appeared closed Thursday afternoon, and the guard station at the entrance was unattended. The club’s Web site also appeared to be down.

A club member told a newspaper that she understood the problem was the size of the group, not race. But Wright rejected that explanation, saying the club covers 10 acres with a “nice-sized” pool and a separate pool for younger children. The board, she said, knew that her group included 65 children, and none of them had misbehaved.

“We were not welcome, once the members saw who we were,” she said.

Wright said that the children were upset, and that she was looking for a psychologist to speak to them next week. Some have asked her whether they are “too dark” to swim in the pool, she said.

“I’m not going to validate this behavior by adults,” Wright said. “It’s unacceptable. This is preposterous, and I won’t stand for it.”

Wright said Girard College has offered to host the children for the summer.