[3] The post-World War II civil rights movement frequently targeted segregated urban leisure venues, provoking violent reactions and even riots from recalcitrant whites.
[4] In summer 1949, black activists who attempted to integrate segregated beaches and other public recreational facilities around the country were met with violent resistance, as was the case in the Fairground Park riot in St. Louis, Missouri.
[5] Among other reasons, pools were particularly contentious sites in the Civil Rights Movement because their desegregation implied the direct mixing of white and black bodies, both in locker rooms and in the water.
A group of white men chased a young black man out of the pool, who cut himself while he was climbing the fence surrounding the facility to escape the mob.
However, two of the three whites were racial liberals, arrested for passing out pamphlets for the Young Progressives Party, a communist front group, without a permit.
They demanded for the nonsegregation policy of the federal government to continue to be enforced at the pool by trained police officers, both black and white.
[14] After a lengthy debate, it was announced that the pool would be reopened by the Department of the Interior as an integrated facility, which happened in summer 1950, with an increased police presence.