Discrimination In American Football Throughout History

This essay will look at the problems that American society had with the racial problems. Discrimination was a big problem in American Football. In the next three chapters of this paper this will be examined how this discrimination influenced the sport of American Football. This essay will be examining the role of the Ku Klux Klan, National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the roles of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Emmet Till Lynching. It will also look at how the organisations like the National Football League and the All-American Football Conference dealt with the African American players. It will also examine some key figures during this time like George Preston Marshall, the owner of the NFL team the Washington Redskins, who was integral to the segregation in American Football at the time due to him introducing the colour line in National Football League. This would start to change the shape of the National Football League and the sport for over thirty years in the Redskins and over a decade for other teams in the organization due to fear of being unpopular with the public. This proved to be very damaging with some great players more than likely lost during this time in the game.

Up to the 1960’s states passed many laws called Jim Crow Laws which legalised segregation. The phrase 'Jim Crow Law' can be found as early as 1892 in the title of a New York Times article about Louisiana requiring segregated railroad cars. The origin of the phrase 'Jim Crow' has often been attributed to 'Jump Jim Crow', a song-and-dance caricature of blacks performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1832 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson's populist policies. As a result of Rice's fame, 'Jim Crow' by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning 'Negro'. When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against blacks at the end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow Laws. Schools, movie theatres, buses, parks, beaches and many more public places were turned into white only and coloured only. The whites-only services were always better than the coloured only. Blacks were forbidden to work in the same room as whites and marriage between races was also forbidden. Most of these laws were passed in the southern states. Resulting from the Jim Crow, black Americans were humiliated every day. Black people could only sit on the balconies at the movie theatres and they had to sit at the back of the bus. Blacks were forbidden from many public facilities. Whites used widespread terror to control the Black population. This was completed through lynchings. Between 1882 and 1968, five thousand lynchings were reported by the press. Bob Herbert of the New York Times said “We of the South have never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him”. Lynchings involved burning, hangings, dismemberment or dragging behind a car. The all white police paid a blind eye to lynchings and if an incident went to court the jury found the participants innocent.

The Black population lived in extreme poverty. In Southern states, black farmers were sharecroppers. They worked the land of white farmers and paid sixty six percent of the profits going to land owners. Black women worked mainly as maids or cooks. Black elementary schools lacked basic facilities such as books and black high schools were very rare. Even when black people moved to the Northern cities they only got jobs white people did not want. Resulting from segregation, Black people started to develop their own culture businesses clubs and music. Blacks founded their own schools educating black lawyers teachers and doctors who would lead the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s. After the Civil War some Black American did the campaign against discrimination. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) was formed. They campaigned for justice by publicising lynchings, registered black voters, took states and cities to court over school conditions, urged federal government to outlaw discrimination. Up to 1952 the NAACP had won several court cases to enforce the ‘Separate but equal’ rule, thus some Black schools were improved. In 1952, the NAACP took a case on behalf of an eight-year-old Kansas girl, Linda Brown, who wanted to attend the white only school beside her house.

The NAACP successfully argued that segregated school made black children feel inferior. The Supreme Court ordered the ending of segregation in schools immediately. The Brown judgement incensed in the South. Racial tensions rose because of the Brown case. In Mississippi, a received Ku Klux Klan lynched several Blacks for encouraging Black people to register as voters. In August 1955, Emmet Till while visiting relations in Mississippi was murdered for whistling at a white woman. The woman’s husband and friend were brought to trial despite overwhelming evidence they were found to be not guilty. The case highlighted discrimination in the South.

Montgomery is the State Capital of Alabama and in the 1950’s Jim Crow Laws kept a strict segregation between the black and white communities. City Services were very poor in Black areas and Black only schools were under resourced. Like most southern cities the transport system was segregated. All bus drivers were white while seventy five percent of bus passengers were black. Black passengers paid the driver at the front of the bus but had to board the bus from the back door after paying. The front was reserved for whites. Should the front of the bus become too crowded black passengers were to give up their seats. Black activists including E. D Nixon, Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King wanted to protest at this segregation. The Brown Judgement encouraged resistance. The NAACP was looking for a case around which they could rally the black community.

In 1955 Rosa Parks was a forty-two year old member of the NAACP. She worked as a seamstress in a Montgomery Department Store. On the 1st December, Rosa Parks boarded the bus after work and sat on the first row of seats held for Black people. When the seats held for whites at the front of the bus were filled the bus driver asked Rosa to move for a white man, she refused. That led to Rosa being arrested. Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said, 'When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination to cover my body like a quilt on a winter night. '. NAACP leaders now decided to use the Parker case to highlight discrimination in transport. E. D Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson approached Rosa Parks, who agreed to allow her case to contest the constitutionality of segregation law. Robinson, who was the leader of the Women’s Political Council decided to hold a boycott of the buses on the following Monday, the day of Parks trial. News of the boycott was spread by black ministers at church on Sunday and 35,000 leaflets were distributed. The Boycott organisers needed a leader to drive the Boycott. Martin Luther King would be that leader. Luther King was a twenty-six-year-old Baptist minister and became the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was established to lead the boycott. King was a believer in Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of non-violent protest. On Monday the 5th of December, Rosa Parks appeared in court and was convicted and fined $10.

It rained that day, but the black community preserved their boycott. Some road in carpool, while others travelled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare as the bus, 10 cents. Most of the remainder of the forty thousand commuters walked, some as far as twenty miles. After the success of the Monday boycott until the bus company gave into their demands which were that black drivers were employed on buses, drivers should be courteous to all passengers and bus seats should be filled in a first come first served basis. The Montgomery Improvement Association set up a private taxi service to a ferry black workers throughout the cit. Car Pools were organised by those who had cars. The majority of black workers either walked or cycled to work. When local insurance agents cancelled insurance for the car pools the MIA insured the car pool with Lloyds of London. Black Churches were vital in organising the Boycott, raising $30,000 for the car pool, twenty-four of the ministers were arrested for helping the boycott. City authorities to stop the boycott at every opportunity. The KKK became active by marching and pouring acid on black taxis. Black taxis were harassed, Rosa Parks and her fellow activists were sacked from their jobs. Black taxis and churches were bombed and attempts were made to shoot Martin Luther King and the leading activists. When it became clear that the bus company would not give the NAACP a case against bus segregation.

In June a panel of three federal judges ruled that the bus laws in Alabama wore unconstitutional. The State of Alabama appealed that decision to the US Supreme Court. On the 13th November 1956 the US Supreme Court declared that the bus segregation was unconstitutional and on the following day the MIA called off the boycott. On the 21st December, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and boycott leaders took seats on the front of the bus. It was asked to Rosa Parks why she did not move from her seat in the bus, she stated in her book “People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in”. This led to a backlash from white extremists who fired at buses, however this soon ended.

Although the boycott did not end Jim Crow laws in Montgomery it did have significant effects with the white community now knowing the black community would fight for equal status, the ability to organise and sustain the boycott that Blacks were not inferior to whites, the black community now looked to a new dynamic leader, Martin Luther King. The model used in Montgomery of non-violent protest and legal action was used across the South. The Media coverage of the boycott showed white Americans the deprivations experienced by the Black community in the South. The Boycott lasted three hundred and eighty one days and cost the MIA $250,000. The City of Montgomery lost millions of dollars, violence continued against the black community. Whites tried to establish their own bus company which failed. The KKK continued to harass the black community support for this harassment waned after the bombing of Ralph Abernathy’s house. After the Montgomery Bus Boycott the NAACP continued to force the federal Government to enforce equality legislation. In September 1957, nine Black Students attempted to enter the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The State Governor refused to protect the students from an angry mob. Leaner Perez of the White Citizens Council said “The moment a Negro Child walk into the school, every self-respecting, loving parent should take his white child out of that broken school”. President Eisenhower had to intervene placing US soldiers at the school to protect black students. Black students campaigned against segregation in restaurants by ‘sitting in at restaurants’.

Martin Luther King supported this protest, and was arrested in Atlanta for encouraging Blacks to enter toilets and cinemas. Students also tried to highlight segregation in interstate transport by completing a ‘freedom ride’ across the south. Students on the ‘freedom ride’ had to be protected by state troopers. In 1962 a black student James Meredith applied to enter University of Mississippi, Federal Courts forced the University to accept the black student. He was protected by Federal Marshalls, this resulted in riots with two people dying and three hundred and seventy five injured. In 1963 Martin Luther King organised a peaceful march in Birmingham Alabama to highlight segregation, he said “I Think though that we can be sure that the vast majority for Negroes who engage in the demonstrations and who understand the nonviolent philosophy will be able to face dogs and all other brutal methods that are used without retaliating with violence, because they understand that one of the first principles of nonviolence is a willingness to be the recipient of violence, while never inflicting violence on another”. The local police thief Eugene Bull Conor was highly criticised after he turned police dogs on peaceful marchers. President Kennedy now proposed to introduce Civil Rights legislation to deal with discrimination. A rally was held at the Lincoln memorial where King was made his famous “I have a dream” speech. After Kennedy’s assassination LBJ forced the Civil Rights bill through Congress.

The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 outlawed discrimination in all public places. An employment opportunities communism was established to outlaw discrimination in the workplace. The NAACP now turned its attention to voting rights. In the county of Selma, Alabama only one percent of blacks were registered to voters in Selma was blocked by state troopers. This led to a protest march from Selma to Montgomery which was attacked by state authorities. President Johnson had to send the US Army to protect the marchers who were joined by Black activists like Martin Luther King. The protest was a success when the Voting Rights Bill of 1965 became law. By 1965 the civil rights movement was beginning to divide. The influence of Martin Luther King was challenged by younger more radical activists such as Malcom X. Martin Luther King was critical of US involvement in the Vietnam War and continued. It was not only society that was influenced by this sport was influenced by discrimination in this time. The sport being focused on in this essay is American Football. The sport experienced a lot of segregation and the way to get the source of this segregation is looking at the organizations. The main organisation in this is the National Football League (NFL).

The National Football League is a professional American Football League with thirty-two teams in the organisation. It is separated into two divisions the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). It was set up in 1920 under the name the American Professional Football Association (APFA) but later changed to the National Football League in the 1922 season. There was a merger with the American Football League (AFL) in 1966 to expand the organization. The history of the segregation in the organisations is well accounted for by the author Charles Kenyatta Ross especially in his book the integration of the National Football League. Early in the history of the NFL the game was not the most popular around the outskirts of the country, this meant that the teams were able to breach the segregationist norms of the Jim Crow- era. By breaching these norms, they could use the extremely talented black players. As the game got more popular the teams had started to push out the black players with the fear of being unpopular with fans.

One of the key figures in pushing out these talented black players identified by Charles Kenyatta Ross in his book was the Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. He was influential within the early NFL team owners and with Marshall being very traditional with his views. With the racist nature of Marshall, he pushed for a colour line in the NFL after 1933 which led to zero black players being drafted between 1933 and 1946. Marshall's hostility was specifically directed at the black race; he openly allowed (and promoted) Native Americans on his team, including his first head coach, Lone Star Dietz, widely believed to be a Native American at the time. The choice of Redskins as his team name in 1933 was in part to maintain the native connotations that came with the previous team's name, the Boston Braves. Woody Strode and Kenny Washington were the trailblazers in 1946 when they were drafted by the Cleveland Rams when they moved to the West Coast to Los Angeles. Marshall was quoted as saying 'We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites. ' They began to re-integrate the league apart from Marshall’s Redskins who did not have a black player and still embraced the colour line until 1962 when the Kennedy presidential administration who were appalled by the actions of Marshall, they threatened to kick the Redskins out of their stadium that was publicly-owned in Washington D. C.

Marshalls Power had been diminished but however the question must be asked how many extremely talented black players were lost to the game with the colour line introduced in colour line in 1933. Talented black players like Jackie Robinson who played baseball instead because of the colour line and the early black American footballers forgotten because of this Fritz Pollard and Paul Robeson who did not get a chance or credit because of this segregation. These are only players that were publicised there could have been so much more talent lost because of this colour line and we may have lost some greats of the game. By the 1970’s thirty percent of the players were African Americans, which showed a steady progression of players coming into the league. However, there was a stereotype being created that if you were a young black kid watching American Football and aspiring to be the best you would be told that you will make a great lineman, halfback, wideout, or a kicker. There was one position that was always left out, the most influential position, the Quarterback.

Quotas limiting the number of black players were commonplace, and black players were often stacked into the same positions to allow them to be eliminated as a matter of competition. Many people did not think the African American player had the mentality or the intelligence to play the position, but many people saw them as amazing athletes that would suit the other positions better. This opinion was created by the colour from Marshall by feeding his narrow-minded thoughts of the Redskins Owner. There was no rule against African Americans becoming a Quarterback, but it still took until 1953 while Willie Thrower became the first African American Quarterback in the modern era of the NFL when he lined out for the Chicago Bears. He was a back up quarterback it took until 1968 to get a starting black quarterback with Denver Broncos giving Marlin Briscoe the starting spot. Willie Thrower was a back-up quarterback who saw some action in the 1950s for the Chicago Bears. In 1954, running back Joe Perry of the San Francisco 49ers became the first black player to be recognized as NFL Most Valuable Player, when United Press International named him pro football's player of the year This is another example of how the African American players were inferior to the white man in the sport and society.

References

1. 'Louisiana's 'Jim Crow' Law Valid'. The New York Times. New York. December 21, 1892. Retrieved February 6, 2011. 'New Orleans, Dec 20. – The Supreme Court yesterday declared constitutional the law passed two years ago and known as the 'Jim Crow' law, making it compulsory on railroads to provide separate cars for blacks. '
2. Woodward, C. Vann and McFeely, William S. (2001), “The Strange Career of Jim Crow. ” p. 7
3. Herbert, Bob (January 22, 2008). 'The Blight That Is Still With Us'. The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2008
4. Williams, Donnie; Greenhaw, Wayne (2005). “The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. ” Chicago Review Press. p. 48
5. Parks, Rosa; James Haskins (1992). “Rosa Parks: My Story. ” Dial Books. p. 116
6. Baldwin, J. (2016). “I am not your Negro” 1st ed. New York: Penguin Random House LLC. p. 11
7. Baldwin, J. (2016). “I am not your Negro” 1st ed. New York: Penguin Random House LLC. p. 36
8. McCartney, Robert (May 28, 2014). '1933 news article refutes cherished tale that Redskins were named to honor Indian coach'. The Washington Post. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
9. Rhoden, William C. (December 12, 2011). At some NFL positions, stereotypes reign. The New York Times. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
10. Schudel, Matt (April 26, 2011). 'Joe Perry, football star of the 1950s and first African American MVP, dies at 84'. The Washington Post. Retrieved December 18, 2017.