On This Date In 1962...
...Ten Swimmers "Peacefully Integrated*" Fort Lauderdale Beach
Sixty years ago "Nine boys and one older man" went for a dip on the beach at 15th Street in Fort Lauderdale -- and it was no more than a dip, the group left after about twenty-five minutes -- thus marking the end of racial segregation at Broward County beaches.
Unlike other "swim-ins' the previous summer, there were no segregationists wielding bottles and shouting insults and no Klansmen waving axe handles. "Nearby bathers paid little or no attention to the group,*" read WTVJ's news script for this story, "and there was no attempt by police to remove them."
The city of Fort Lauderdale had no way to prevent ten people swimming while black because a week before a circuit judge had dismissed the city's suit against the local NAACP after the 1961 "swim-ins."
Although the news script describes this event as a "demonstration," it also notes that "The man in charge of the group said they were just there to enjoy themselves and they did not expect trouble.*"
*WTVJ News script, July 15, 1962
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This clip is derived from news film in the WTVJ Collection. Accession number TVN0691-2399-07; airdate July 15, 1962.