The Arizona Sun newspaper in 1950


I was browsing the Library of Congress newspapers site, which I love to do, not really looking for anything in particular, and this front page of the Arizona Sun caught my eye. It's Friday, February 3rd, 1950, and there's an article about the new YMCA building that will be built in Phoenix, Arizona.

No, there's nothing earth-shattering about this issue, and there's no reason for you to try to look for something. It's just an ordinary day in Phoenix in 1950. Time-travel with me.

I have a special fascination for the buildings in Phoenix, so when I see a newspaper article that has information it catches my eye, but there's more here when you put it in historical perspective. This is a newspaper for the Black population of Arizona, which the header explains represents 60,000 of those people. Phoenix, like the rest of the United States, was segregated. This was a time when being Black could keep you from eating a restaurant, staying at a hotel, even using a drinking fountain. And so I read the article about the new YMCA building to see if there would be any mention, even in passing, that 60,000 Arizonans would not be able to use it when it opened.

But there's no mention of that. And to see it from the perspective of these 60,000 people is jarring for a man like me, who grew up after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

When the YMCA building opened, no Black person would have been allowed to use the facilities, to use the pool, anything. Black people would have been allowed to work there, but that was it. And tonight as I write this and think about it, I seem to hear the voices of children asking why they couldn't go in there, use the pool, and I wonder how the grownups explained it.

Here's a link to the page if you want to read it: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/az_campfiregoneout_ver03/data/sn84021917/00414216821/1950020301/0665.pdf

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