The exploits of African American swimmers—both in and outside the pool—have been scattered across American history. And I do mean scattered because they were not plentiful. However, the 21st century has seen a more concentrated display of black Americans in the sport of swimming.
Using the Olympics as a standard I place African Americans Anthony Irvin, who made the team in 2000, and Maritza Correia, who made the team in 2004, as the path-breakers. Maritza Correia had made a name for herself at the NCAA championships in 2002, where she broke two American and NCAA records. In the 50-meter freestyle, she broke the record held by four-time Olympic gold medalist Amy Van Dyken, and in the 100 she exceeded the record held by Jenny Thompson, the most decorated American swimmer in Olympic history. In the 2004 Olympics, Maritza was on the silver medal winning 4 x 100 m(eter) free(style) relay team, thus becoming the first African American female Olympic medalist.
Anthony Irvin made a bigger splash. In 2000 he set a world record in the 50 m free race, short course (25-meter pool). Irvin followed that at the 2000 Olympics with a gold medal victory in the 50 m free and a silver medal as a member of the second-place U.S. relay team in the 4×100-m free event. The next year he won both the 50 and 100 m free races in the World Championships.
In 2003 Irvin dropped out of competitive swimming for eight years. Remarkably, in 2012 he picked up where he left off, qualifying for the 2012 Olympics by placing second to the new African American phenomenon, Cullen Jones, in the 50-m free. Then in 2016, 16 years after his first gold medal, Irvin, at age 35, won the 50-m free again to become the oldest-ever individual Olympic swimming gold medalist.
Cullen Jones became a swimming star during the time Anthony Irvin was away from swimming. In 2006, he was on the world record-breaking 4 x 100-m free U.S. relay at a major international event. The next year Jones won a gold medal in the 4 x 100-m free relay at the World Championships.
At the Olympic trials in 2008, Jones set an American record in the 50-m Free; then he proceeded to win a gold medal as a member of the 4 x 100-m free relay team. In 2009, he set another American record in the 50-m free at the U.S. National Championships. In the 2012 Olympics, Jones won silver medals in the 50-m free and the 4×100-m free relay. Jones may be at the tail end of his swimming career as he failed to make the 2016 Olympic team.
Then came Simone Manuel, shattering the glass ceiling on African American swimming achievements. As we enjoy her success, there are others in the pipeline.
The most prominent African American teenager is Reece Whitley, the 17-year-old sensation from Philadelphia. At age 15 he was Sports Illustrated’s Sportskid of the Year. He is being touted as not just the next great African American swimmer; he is being hailed as the future face of American swimming.
Some people see a practical benefit from the recent increase in African American swimming stars. They are hoping that seeing more black swimming stars will cause an increase in the number of black kids beginning to swim. It seems that the high rate of blacks drowning is the result of too few African American kids knowing how to swim. In the first decade of the 21st century, the rate for blacks drowning was 1.4 times the rate for whites.
P.S. One twitter gave words to Simone Manuel’s feats: “This is for all the black kids who got kicked out of pools and for all the pools drained because black kids touched the water.”