Hi, everyone. I'm excited to share the debut episode of a new podcast from Higher Ground called The Some of Us.

In this podcast, host Heather McGee travels all over the country to find ordinary people who are overcoming divisions and helping create better communities.

From rural Maine to the coast of California, Heather teaches us about the surprising connections that are rebuilding America across our backgrounds, cultures, and differences.

Too often these days, it feels like we're more divided than ever. And the stories in this podcast are a great way to remind us that there will always be good folks all over this country who are working to bring us closer together.

I'll be honest with you. I just love this series. It's inspiring and energizing. And I have a feeling that you'll feel the same way.

Subscribe to The Some of Us to learn more.

I'm in Montgomery, Alabama. In the city's central park called Oak Park.

There are not too many people here, only a handful. There are more groundskeepers than visitors. I see a children's swing set at a standstill.

In the middle of the park, there's a wide, flat expanse of grass surrounded by remembering old oak trees.

The quiet is eerie. It's like it's haunted by something that used to be here.

Barry, 10 feet beneath this wide lawn, is a shell of what once was a dazzling public swimming pool that could hold over a thousand swimmers.

This kind of grand, resort-style public pool was commonplace in the country.

In the 1920s and 30s, towns and cities tried to outdo on another building the most elaborate public pools.

During the oppressive heat of summer, swimming pools are a haven of refuge or young and older like.

Hundreds of such pools with well-equipped bath houses have been constructed by W.A. Life.

By World War II, there were some 2,000 pools like this across the country.

The Montgomery pool was grand and beautiful. A public work for all. But not really all.

Like so many public pools across the country, the Montgomery pool was reserved for white-sonly.

In the 1950s, black families throughout the country argued in courts that their tax dollars also funded these public goods, including the pools.

So their kids should be able to swim in them too. And when they couldn't, the results could be tragic.

In the summer of 1953 in Baltimore, a 13-year-old boy, Tommy Cummings, a black boy, drowned in the rough waters of the Patapsco River.

Because there was no integrated pool where he and his friends, two white and one black, were allowed to swim together.

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