‘Glide like Super Girl’: Beaufort’s swimming pool hero was on a special mission

Because dividers hog most of America’s fleeting attention span, let’s take a quick look at a uniter who lived right here in Beaufort.

Alvin Settles wanted all people — especially children — to know that they are important.

He was only 69 when he died earlier this month, yet he was reared in Aiken in an era when children of his color were told explicitly and often by society that they were second-class.

Settles went about changing this one stroke at a time — in a swimming pool.

For 30 years, he taught people of all ages and races to swim at the public Greene Street Swimming Pool in Beaufort.

For 32 years, he taught swimming at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

This was separate from his 40-year career as a speech pathologist in the Laurel Bay military schools.

He touched thousands of lives.

But why swimming?

I can tell you that for decades, the lack of swimming lessons and opportunities was a major concern in a county that is 70% water.

JIM CROW

Gloria Settles, who met Alvin at South Carolina State University and married him 42 years ago, shortly after they got their advanced degrees, says there’s more to the story.

“It was for their safety,” she said, “but also to have the opportunity to just enjoy the water like everyone else and to take advantage of what we have here.”

No. 1 to Alvin Settles was equal access.

In his generation, many Black children did not have access to public pools or lakes due to segregation. Or they didn’t have the money.

Settles felt that by encouraging equal access to the water, he would encourage young people to believe in themselves.

“He wanted everybody to know and feel and believe they were important,” his wife said. “All of us are important. We are equal. He especially wanted children to know that early in life.”

And, indeed, Marlena Benson wrote this tribute:

“Mr. Settles started teaching me at the age of 4 years old. He said that he would take the chance in teaching me how to swim. And I am so grateful in knowing him during the summers at the Greene Street Gym, and I will always remember him saying, ‘Glide like Super Girl, Marlena.’ ”

It reminds me of the mission of the late “Professor” Kent Alston, principal of Beaufort’s segregated Robert Smalls High School for Black children from 1939 to 1962.

He brought Black superstars to town — including Marian Anderson, Joe Louis and Lionel Hampton — to show kids they could be somebody, even as Jim Crow society said they couldn’t.

CITY OF BEAUFORT

Alvin Settles loved to play golf at Parris Island and sing at the Tabernacle Baptist Church, where he was a deacon.

He was a people person, and that, too, was part of his mission.

Whether he was in Walmart or Publix, he would talk to somebody.

That was his joy in life, right up there with his alma mater, S.C. State, and its football team and “Marching 101” band that he used to strut in front of, carrying the banner.

“He was a man of God, number one,” Gloria Settles said. “He would say ‘I’m a believer.’ But he wanted that to be lived out. It’s what you do, not what you say.

“He thought that if we can represent what people should be like in this world, we were doing what we were sent here to do.”

Alvin Settles did not live under a spotlight that all the attention dividers and complainers get.

But he was widely appreciated.

The City of Beaufort proclaimed June 23, 2015, as Alvin Settles Day for his service to the community.

And at his passing, Fred Washington Jr. said, “We need more stories and commentaries about people who ‘bridge’ and not ‘divide.’ ”

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com