Amy Goldman, a member of The Valley Club, said those able to attend a hastily called meeting Sunday afternoon voted unanimously in support of reinstating the memberships of the Creative Steps day camp and two other camps as long as safety issues, times and terms can be agreed upon.
The Creative Steps camp had arranged for 65 mostly black and Hispanic children to swim each Monday afternoon at the gated Huntingdon Valley club, which is on a leafy hillside in a village straddling two overwhelmingly white townships. But after the group arrived June 29, camp director Alethea Wright said, several children reported hearing racial comments and some swim club members pulled their children out of the pool.
The camp's $1,950 was refunded a few days later.
The president of the swim club's board of directors, John Duesler, has said the decision was made out of safety considerations, not racial concerns.
"We have near-unanimous approval from our membership, so at this point we'll be figuring out ... how to approach all the camps and see how we can move forward," Duesler told WPVI-TV at the club's entrance on Sunday.
The swim club has claimed it has a diverse, multiethnic membership, but Goldman, a member for two years, said she couldn't remember seeing a black member this year.
Goldman said members were told that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which has opened an investigation, is to make a fact-finding visit to the club July 30. U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., said Friday he had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate "to determine what action, if any, is warranted by the Civil Rights Division."
Others to criticize the club include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United States' highest-profile black swimmer, Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones, who said Thursday that "hearing about what's happened to these 65 kids is both disturbing and appalling."
Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, the governing body for the U.S. swim team, said he was stunned by the accusations against the club.
Wright, the camp director, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Sunday evening. She said earlier that other institutions had offered to host her group at their pools for the summer.
Camp parent Silvia Carvalho said she hadn't heard about the club's action but didn't believe her 9-year-old daughter, Araceli, would be willing to return.
"She has already said so," Carvalho said Sunday night. "She doesn't want people to look at her the same way."
A lawsuit has been filed against the Valley Swim Club in federal court. The legal action stems from allegations that a group of young children were kicked out of the Huntingdon Valley pool club because of the color of their skin. Protestors held a rally at the site Saturday.
VIDEO: The Valley Club news conference 7.10.2009.
You could say the Valley Swim Club is now drowning in controversy. By 6 p.m., some of the protestors were still at the club.
One of the mothers on the scene told Action News that her angry words arent fit for TV, but she is among those who plans to join a class action lawssuit filed Saturday by another mother of four.
The kids were part of a minority daycamp that was turned away from The Valley Club last week after officials were quoted as saying the children's presence change the complexion and atmosphere of the pool. Silvia Carvalho is among those who helped the Creative Steps Daycamp pay The Valley Swim Club more than $1,900 so the children could swim here. The check was refunded after officials at the club then said the children were turned away due to lack of space. It's a claim these protesters just don't buy.
Police have been standing by at the scene. Action News was told one pool member did become confrontational and the protesters say they have endured name-calling and hand gestures -- even adults sticking out their tongues to show they aren't welcome here.
On Friday, the Associated Press reported that officials with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission said they would immediately open an investigation into the actions of The Valley Club in the leafy suburb of Huntingdon Valley.
"The rule of law in Pennsylvania is equal opportunity for all, regardless of race," , chairman Stephen A. Glassman said Thursday in a written statement released by his office.
"Allegedly, this group was denied the use of a pool based on their race," Glassman said. "If the allegations prove to be true, this is illegal discrimination in Pennsylvania."
The club maintains that accusations of racial discrimination are false and claims overcrowding from more than one outside camp was the problem.
The Creative Steps camp in northeast Philadelphia had contracted for the 65 children at the day camp to go each Monday afternoon to The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, camp director Alethea Wright said Thursday. But shortly after they arrived June 29, she said, some black and Hispanic children reported hearing racial comments.
"A couple of the children ran down saying, 'Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they're up there saying, "What are those black kids doing here?""' she said.
The gated club is on a leafy hillside in a village that straddles two townships with overwhelmingly white populations. It says it has a diverse, multiethnic membership.
Wright said she went to talk to a group of members and heard one woman say she would see to it that the group, made of up of children in kindergarten through seventh grade, did not return.
"Some of the members began pulling their children out of the pool and were standing around with their arms folded," Wright said. "Only three members left their children in the pool with us."
Several days later, the club refunded the camp's $1,950 without explanation, said Wright, who added that some parents are "weighing their options" on legal action.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People requested the Human Relations Commission's investigation.
Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., issued a statement calling the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said he was looking into the matter.
The United States' highest-profile black swimmer, Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones, said "hearing about what's happened to these 65 kids is both disturbing and appalling."
Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, the governing body for the U.S. swim team, was stunned at the accusations.
"This is the sort of thing you'd hear about in 1966, during the height of the civil rights movement, not in 2009, and not in the City of Brotherly Love, of all places," he said.
Club president John Duesler told a Philadelphia television station that several club members complained because the children "fundamentally changed the atmosphere" at the pool but that the complaints didn't involve race.
In a statement released on its Web site Thursday afternoon, the club called the allegations of racial discrimination "completely untrue."
The club said it "deplores discrimination."
Amy Goldman said she's been a member of the club for two years. She said the pool wasn't particularly crowded and the children from Creative Steps were "well-behaved and respectful."
She said there had been black members at the club in the past, though she couldn't remember seeing any this year.
The club appeared closed Thursday afternoon, and the guard station at the entrance was unattended.
About two dozen protesters, most of them white, held signs in front of the club's locked gates and chanted slogans including, "Jim Crow swims here!"
Wright rejected the overcrowding explanation, saying the club covers 10 acres with a "nice-sized" pool and a separate pool for younger children. The board, she said, knew that her group included 65 children, and none of them had misbehaved.
Wright said that the children were upset and that she was looking for a psychologist to speak to them. Some children have asked her whether they are "too dark" to swim in the pool, she said.
Day camp member Araceli Carvalho, 9, said she was upset when told she wouldn't be allowed to return.
"I said, 'That's not right,"' she said.
But when asked if she wants to return now, she said, "I don't want to swim here anymore."
Wright said Girard College, a boarding school for poor children in first through 12th grades, has offered to host the camp children for the summer.
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AP Sports Writer Cliff Brunt in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
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