Paulana Lamonier started Black People Will Swim in 2019 and has since provided free and low-cost lessons to over 2,500 Black and brown people

Valerie Spears hadn’t planned on taking swim lessons when she RSVP’d to her high school reunion in New York City.

But when Spears, a 72-year-old retiree who lives in Akron, Ohio, learned about a free class in Queens, she decided to pack her bathing suit.

Top: Young swimmers and an instructor at the swimming lesson organized by BPWS on Thursday, 20 June 2024.
Above: Donna Hall, 58, and her son, Samuel De La Cruz, 11, share a tender moment. They have been taking lessons with BPWS for two years.