Fifty years ago last week, the Washington Redskins fielded three African-American players against the St. Louis Cardinals. Fullback Ron Hatcher, offensive guard John Nisby, and Hall of Fame flanker Bobby Mitchell. The Redskins were the last professional football club to integrate. Mainly due to owner, bigot, George Preston Marshall, a native West Virginian, but also due to the Redskins having been the only "southern" club east of the Mississippi River.
From 1937, when the Redskins arrived in the nation's capitol from Boston, to 1960, when the AFL founded clubs in Dallas and Houston, the Washington Redskins were Dixie's only NFL club. Marshall, during that time, created a vast partnership with dozens of southern radio and television affiliates. Marshall used his club's southern following as partial motivation to resisting integration. He also just plain didn't like non-whites. Seriously. Fuck this guy.
What matters most is that the Redskins finally succumbed to social pressure in the Civil Rights Era and let physical talent once again* speak for itself. And physical talent it was! Bobby Mitchell started off with a touchdown in the first and second quarters, and Washington never trailed in the game. And having been subject to protesters and picketers outside home games for holding onto segregation, Marshall's Redskins were now being protested and picketed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Mitchell's final numbers that day would have been astounding for a fantasy football owner: 7 receptions, 147 yards, and two touchdowns.
We as sports fans often forget what sports have done for our country. Without ball clubs, boxing titles, and track teams, what broken racial barriers would reach the masses? Perhaps we would be celebrating racial barrier firsts more beneficial to the species as a whole: Sarah E. Goode, 1885, first African-American to hold a U.S. Patent, or Edward A. Bouchet, first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university (Yale, Physics).
Instead of Jackie Robinson's twentieth century accomplishments, we'd mark on the calendar when poet Jupiter Hammon, in 1761, became the first African-American published in the U.S. These would be great things to celebrate as a nation. But we're not living in the erudite utopia some of us yearn for. Instead, we're in 21st century America, where citizens come together, sans political opinion (usually) or prejudice (hopefully), and celebrate thrilling sporting accomplishments of all athletes (mostly).
It's not perfect, but it's a good thing.
*The NFL actually began as integrated in 1920. It remain integrated until 1926, and didn't begin reintegrating until 1946.
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| HoF Bobby Mitchell |
What matters most is that the Redskins finally succumbed to social pressure in the Civil Rights Era and let physical talent once again* speak for itself. And physical talent it was! Bobby Mitchell started off with a touchdown in the first and second quarters, and Washington never trailed in the game. And having been subject to protesters and picketers outside home games for holding onto segregation, Marshall's Redskins were now being protested and picketed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Mitchell's final numbers that day would have been astounding for a fantasy football owner: 7 receptions, 147 yards, and two touchdowns.
We as sports fans often forget what sports have done for our country. Without ball clubs, boxing titles, and track teams, what broken racial barriers would reach the masses? Perhaps we would be celebrating racial barrier firsts more beneficial to the species as a whole: Sarah E. Goode, 1885, first African-American to hold a U.S. Patent, or Edward A. Bouchet, first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university (Yale, Physics).
Instead of Jackie Robinson's twentieth century accomplishments, we'd mark on the calendar when poet Jupiter Hammon, in 1761, became the first African-American published in the U.S. These would be great things to celebrate as a nation. But we're not living in the erudite utopia some of us yearn for. Instead, we're in 21st century America, where citizens come together, sans political opinion (usually) or prejudice (hopefully), and celebrate thrilling sporting accomplishments of all athletes (mostly).
It's not perfect, but it's a good thing.
*The NFL actually began as integrated in 1920. It remain integrated until 1926, and didn't begin reintegrating until 1946.
