On a mission to blow stereotypes out the water

PHOTO | AALIYAH BOWDEN

Evolutionary Aquatics’ intermediate swimmers class gather at West Charlotte High School’s pool for instruction.

Nadine Ford grew up around Black swimmers.

In the Druid Hills community, they gathered at the community pool to turn laps, a familiar sight that ran counter to the narrative national statistics suggest. As a youngster, it was a given.

“Everybody in my neighborhood knew how to swim,” said Ford, founder of the nonprofit Evolutionary Aquatics. “I was grown when I started hearing, ‘Black people don't swim.’ When I started hearing the statistics, I'm like that makes no sense.”

Evolutionary Aquatics is committed to teaching people of color how to swim by providing low- to no-cost adult swim lessons and recreational aquatic programming for everyone. In 2014, the program addressed the lack of swim programs aimed at Black women by creating Mahogany Mermaids.  In 2018, Evolutionary Aquatics became the only registered all-Black swim club registered with U.S. Masters Swimming, the national governing body for adult swimmers.

A year later the program expanded to include men. In 2020-21, Evolutionary Aquatics received a grant through USMS to teach adults how to swim with the help of Miller Swimming, a Charlotte-based swim school.

At Evolutionary Aquatics, not only do participants learn to swim, but they also learn the history behind African Americans swimming. The mission is to teach adults their authentic and genetic aquatic culture to dispel the historical and societal “Blacks don’t swim” narrative that have prevailed since the Jim Crow era.  

“I just tell them it’s in our DNA. It is literally our heritage,” Ford said.  “When you look at all negro spirituals [like] ‘Wade in the Water,’ [or] lay my troubles by the riverside.’ If we couldn't swim, if we didn't swim, then why do we have all these references to water and our history?”

Through the program, participants have a chance to become a certified lifeguard, or a swim coach.

“You take that first swim lesson, and if you want to become a coach, we're gonna be there for you,” said Ford, who is a certified lifeguard. “If you want to become a lifeguard, we’re gonna be there for you. If you want to do open water swim, we're going to train you and practice with you. We're more of a community than we are just swim lessons.”

Evolutionary Aquatics has three program levels based on skill. The first is an introduction to water skills where swimmers work with coaches to become more comfortable in the water.

The second is the fundamentals of swimming, including freestyle, backstroke, and arm and hip movement. After that, swimmers move on to stroke development and building up endurance in the water.

Kelli Belsches, 54, started classes in January. She learned to swim as a child, but a traumatic experience forced her to quit.

“I took swimming when I was maybe four or five years old, and it terrified me, so it didn’t work,” said Belsches, who is enrolled in the intermediate program.  “I tried again at seven, and I had kind of an incident in the deep end, and it just kind of traumatized me. I was like I'm never going back.”

Belsches, whose son is on the Mallard Creek High School swim team, was motivated by a fellow swim mom to try again. When she first started classes, Belsches was afraid of water, but in four months mastered swimming and is learning how to dive.  

“The program starts you off by getting you comfortable in the water,” Belsches said. “I think that's what the other programs were missing. They were just trying to teach you swimming, so it wasn’t really working. But we first come into this program, they teach you how to breathe and teach you how to breathe under the water. They teach you how to float on your front and your back. It’s very basic things and they just build on top of that. By the time you get to [intermediate], you've already kind of built up a comfort level.”

Nicole Sandiford, 43, who started swimming in 2021, grew up in the Caribbean. Swimming didn’t come easy to her as a youngster and taking lessons was beyond her family’s means.

“We did have the beach but it’s one of those things where you don’t have to really know how to swim to be able to go to the beach and enjoy it,” she said.  “It's not something that came naturally to me. There are some people who just kind of figure it out on their own, but I could never figure it out on my own.”  

Sandiford added that Ford pushes swimmers to be their best.

“Nadine, she can be a little bit of a drill sergeant,” Sandiford said. “But it is with love, and she really just wants you to do whatever your best is and don't give up.”

Some people have a fear of water or swimming because of a childhood experience but giving it another chance could save lives.

“Never give up and keep going,” said Kristina Mickle, 32, who is in the intermediate class. “If I can do it, anybody can. Even though it took me about a year, it can be done. You just have to get out of your head and just believe in yourself and the instructors will believe in you even when you don't believe in yourself.”  

Aaliyah Bowden, who covers health at The Post, is a Report For America corps member.

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