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Petersburg resident Carlos Coles has been fishing Wilcox Lake for five years. The lake has been open to boating and fishing, but has swimming has been prohibited there for 60 years. (Photo by Tharon Giddens)
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Historic photo of Wilcox Lake beach (Photo by William E. Lum Jr. courtesy Willcox Watershed Conservancy)
The Petersburg City Council has done some legal housekeeping, reversing a 1950s relic of the Jim Crow era.
Council members have rescinded a 1958 action that had closed the city’s Wilcox Lake to swimming to prevent integration of the facility. The 22-acre lake in Lee Memorial Park is currently open only for fishing and boating.
“My whole life, I saw the lake closed and it’s a huge joy to open the lake back up,” says Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham, who was born in 1975.
The city needs to determine if the lake is safe before reopening it to swimming, says Parham.
The council’s action was taken on June 19, or Juneteenth, the date that commemorates when the end of slavery was announced in Texas, months after Confederate forces in the East surrendered.
The action is intended as a way to help draw the community together.
"I think it’s very important for race relations, for the healing process to begin; it opens up dialogue in what the council is doing in terms of improving the way society looks at us and other places in Virginia,” says Councilwoman Treska Wilson-Smith, who initiated the motion. She also had sought to have the city rescind the ban in 2013 and 2014.
“I think that any time you are on council, you must leave a record that shows you have worked for the citizens of the city, and that you have done all you can to improve life in that city or area.”
The 330-acre park around the lake is rich in amenities, including tennis and basketball courts, picnic facilities and hiking trails. The park is home to diverse and unusual flora and fauna, marine fossils and Civil War history. The lake was created when Willcox Branch was dammed in the 1890s and the park was dedicated in the 1920s. Conservation efforts in the 1930s improved the park, courtesy of African-American women laborers who were hired through the Depression-era Works Progress Administration.
It was a beachfront property for white city residents, a place for picnics and swimming in warm weather and was extensively decorated for the holidays. Actor Joseph Cotten (who appeared in films such as “Citizen Kane” and “Gaslight”), a Petersburg native, reportedly worked there as a lifeguard in his youth.
But the only blacks to visit were maids and servants, says Richard Stewart, who works to preserve local African-American history and operates the Pocahontas Island Black History Museum. A group of prominent black residents filed a suit in 1953 to open the park to all residents. The city responded by closing the lake instead of integrating.
“That always was a sore situation around here,” says Stewart.
Stewart hopes that the council’s action can help bring about a healing moment.
“I believe they really stand for what is right,” he says. “I just hope something can work out and there can be peace between black and white, and we can start a new day.”
Parham describes the park as “one of the jewels of our time,” and notes work by the Willcox Watershed Conservancy including trail improvement and replanting the park’s Azalea Hill.
The conservancy, which was created in 2007, has been working to rehab the WPA trails, moving some to improve safety and installing some new features, according to Burke Steele IV, the president of the conservancy. There are about four miles of trails open, and the conservancy hopes to eventually have a network covering 10 miles.
The conservancy has helped raise $250,000 for improvements, and also provided long hours of sweat equity, says Steele. "It’s a beautiful park. It’s kind of a diamond in the rough that unfortunately sat there dormant for a period of time," he says.
Petersburg resident Carlos Cole was fishing near the dam on Monday. He says he’s been a regular at the lake since he took up the sport five years ago, pointing at a spot across the lake that is a favorite fishing hole for bass. It’s a sweltering day, and the idea that the lake could also soon be open for a swim is appealing.
“That would be nice,” he says.