Public swimming pools — generally a subject hard to get worked up about.

If you were an African American or Hispanic resident of the Inland Empire early in the 20th century, you may have found the gates to a day of summer swimming slammed shut or told you could use the pool only on one day each week.

These limitations would later spawn a civil rights movement here, as those discriminated against used the legal system to finally halt the practice. And we’ll see this also played a small role in a much greater legal victory.

Local officials — perhaps fearful of reactions or even racial violence — felt justified nearly a century ago keeping the races separate at the pools.

“We do not feel that the giving of different days to the different races is an unjust discrimination to either race, b

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