[hanamizu]

Cairo, Illinois—a prime example of how racial strife can kill a community— closed its public pool rather than open it to blacks. Whites formed/joined a country club with a private pool. Blacks got to swim (and drown) in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Southern Illinois is much more of the South than the North.

[a fool in paradise]

"Southern Illinois" is only "Southern" if you have xenophobic views of the South.

[driftless2]

I'm white. I used to swim in the Mississippi. I didn't drown. There was also a country club with a swimming pool and golf course that was reserved for members only. My family members were not members of the cc. Too poor to afford the membership. We understood that as non-members, we were not allowed to play golf or swim there. So we didn't.

And I knew a co-worker (also white) whose family was too poor to give him ten cents to go swim at the municipal pool. So he swam in one of the rivers of our area that had a beach. He didn't drown either.