There have been nine swimming deaths in Rhode Island since April, and studies show that a surprising number of children in the United States do not know how to swim.
Every year, swimmers are at risk in the Ocean State, from public places like beaches and rivers to private pools in residential areas.
And children are particularly in peril.
On June 23, North Providence police investigated the death of a 4-year-old boy in a pool, according to The Providence Journal. Investigators were told the boy was pulled from the pool after “an undetermined amount of time” underwater, the newspaper reported.
An average of 11 people drown every day in the U.S., says Mara Gay, a member of The New York Times editorial board.
“So we’re losing 4,000 people a year to drowning,” Gay says. “It’s the leading cause of death of children from 1 to 4.”
She added that some groups are more susceptible to drowning than others because they were not taught to swim.
“Drowning is something that affects Americans of all backgrounds. However, it does disproportionately affect minorities,” Gay says. “And in particular, black and native communities.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children are 1.5 times more likely to die from drowning than white children. Native American children are two times as likely, the organization notes.
Segregation played a role
Segregation in the U.S. contributed to a generation of minorities that never learned to swim, Gay says.
“It goes really deep. So Black Americans, many people know we’re not allowed to learn how to read during slavery,” Gay says. “Many times they also weren’t allowed to learn how to swim, and that’s because it would’ve made it easier to escape to freedom. Dogs couldn’t track your scent in water, which was known among enslaved Americans.
“During segregation, you had public pools that were not open to black Americans.”
Gay adds that in many communities, including the South, officials chose to fill in, destroy or close their public pools rather than allow Black people to swim in them.
“So, white wealthier Americans who were able to start forming their own clubs, their own neighborhood associations that were of course segregated, and the rest of America was shut out,” Gay says. “Because of that history, there are generations not only of black Americans who can’t swim, but of poor white Americans too.
“You would never take similarly your child and put them in a car without a car seat. And yet we find it completely acceptable in American society to allow generations and millions of children to grow up without learning how to swim or be safe around the water.”
Trying to reverse the trend
During the early 1990s, Ray Rickman, then a Rhode Island state representative, said he received a call from a sobbing woman who said her child had drowned at Lincoln Woods State Park.
“She watched her son drown,” Rickman says. “She could not swim. Can you imagine? You can’t imagine.”
Rickman started a program called Swim Empowerment, which sponsors swimming lessons for Black children and low-income youths. He says that 2,600 children have learned to swim through his program.
“This is my commitment to her,” Rickman says.
