Since the day it happened, this experience with my niece has haunted me. How are we to interpret this story? How could a black child in 1999 plausibly believe that the swimming pool was for" whites only"? The issues implicit in this story, which I offer as metaphor for the inherent complexity of the continuing struggle for black liberation, can be unpacked using two perspectives. One focuses on the history of segregation-of white and black separateness; and the other focuses on black identity formation-the essential question of what it means to be black. One interpretation of this story is that racial integration has been insufficient. The aunt was faced with a swimming pool inhabited entirely by whites, eliminating her niece's desire to swim. In this framework, the aunt's suggestion that her niece" get in that pool" was an attempt to teach both her niece and the white swimmers the value of boundary crossing. For the white children, their settled, if unconscious, expectations of place and space would be disrupted. At the same time, her niece would learn that spaces inhabited solely by whites would not be theirs in perpetuity. From this perspective, the aunt's urging of the niece to" get in the pool" was grounded in the American civil rights history of lunch counter sit-ins that represented black encroachment on traditionally white spaces. This victory over segregation could only be attained by breaking down barriers through entering and occupying white space. To the extent that integration requires sacrifice-clearly the niece was experiencing some emotional discomfortthat price should be willingly paid. I call this framework for understanding the story the" present-day integrationist" perspective. An alternate view frames the story from the perspective of identity formation and membership in a racially defined community. I will call this view the" identity-based, community-centered" perspective. In this framework, the child's presence in the pool was not necessary to guarantee her liberation. Indeed, her presence in the pool may well have threatened her ultimate ability to define herself on her own terms. Her refusal to take advantage of a swimming opportunity on a hot day was not a self-imposed detriment but an act of self-protection and self-definition, a tacit acknowledgement of the continuing reality of de facto segregation. From this perspective, the most appropriate site for an individual's racial or ethnic