Curt Gentry, one of the key organizers and participants in the wade-in at the Terrace Club in the summer 1964, was well-known in both the white and black communities of the city. He had been a standout student and athlete at the integrated Portsmouth High School (PHS), serving as the Vice-President of the Class of 1955 and starring in varsity sports. His former PHS basketball coach, Charles Lorentz, it turned out, also managed the segregated pool at the Terrace Club. At the time of the wade-in, Gentry was home from Maryland State College on his summer break, having recently participated in demonstrations organized by a local chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The protests, in Cambridge, Maryland, had turned as violent as Birmingham under Bull Conor, with the police using firehoses and German shepherds to break-up public demonstrations by Civil Rights activists. It was in Cambridge, that Gloria Richardson emerged as the leader of the movement, and there is little doubt the struggle in Cambridge informed the thoughts and actions of Gentry, as he supported the use of direct action against the Terrace Club in Portsmouth.