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‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being Black’: Race, Class, and Victorian Vancouver First Lifeguard

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a black man, Joe Fortes, received much admiration from the city of Vancouver's white population. Fortes’s life and career presents an interesting study of race and class not only in Vancouver but also in the larger North American society during this period. Around the turn of the twentieth century, a social hierarchy based on Social Darwinism developed and affirmed the superiority of the white, heterosexual, male of means. Through his role as a lifeguard, however, Fortes challenged the stereotypical assumptions of non-whites and achieved a degree of acceptance in a predominantly white society through the sport of swimming. This paper discusses Fortes’ journey to respectability by adopting the values and beliefs learned from organised sport and physical recreation.