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| Francois Clemmons and Fred Rogers. 1969. |
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Christ & Pop Culture
In 1969, when black Americans were still prevented from swimming alongside whites, Mr.Rogers decided to invite Officer Clemmons to join him on his popular television show, and cool his feet in a pool, breaking a well-known color barrier.
Episode 1065 of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, which aired only a few months after Clemmons’ debut, opens in the typical manner with Rogers inviting viewers to be his neighbor; but instead of putting on his iconic cardigan, Rogers talks about how hot the day is and how nice it would be to put his feet in a pool of cold water. He moves to his front yard where he fills a small plastic pool with water and begins to soak his feet. Soon Officer Clemmons drops by for a visit and Mr. Rogers invites him to share the pool with him. Clemmons quickly accepts, rolls up his pant legs of his uniform, and places his very brown feet in the same water as Rogers’ very white feet.
Today, this small gesture may seem insignificant, but in 1969, it was considerable. Like public fountains, public transportation, and public schools, the public pool had become a battleground of racial segregation. Under Jim Crow era policy, not only could black and whites not swim at the same time, many pools were entirely off limits to blacks, fueled by a fear that African-Americans carried disease and the view that swimming pools were physically (and by extension sexually) intimate contexts. Like the lunch counter and public buses, swimming pools became a point of protest.
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