A Philadelphia-area swimming pool that opened in the late 1950s for black members who were denied access to a nearby whites-only pool has filed for bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal’s Bankruptcy Beat blog reported yesterday. Officials who put the Nile Swim Club of Yeadon, a Philadelphia suburb, into chapter 11 protection on Wednesday didn’t explain the club’s survival plan in the seven-page bankruptcy petition. A fundraising effort had been launched earlier this year to pay off about $134,000 in taxes. The swim club has a storied place in civil rights history; the facility opened in 1959 after two black families were not allowed into another “racially exclusive” club. The effort to establish the Nile Swim Club got national media attention at the time and received support from singer Harry Belafonte and the Supremes. The club filed for bankruptcy once before in 2010 “to avoid a threatened tax sale” and work out a payment plan with a local school district, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
