Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football

by Lane Demas

Even the most casual sports fans celebrate the achievements of professional athletes, among them Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Yet before and after these heroes staked a claim for African Americans in professional sports, dozens of college athletes asserted their own civil rights on the amateur playing field, and continue to do so today.Integrating the Gridiron, the first book devoted to exploring the racial politics of college athletics, examines the history of African Americans on predominantly white college football teams from the nineteenth century through today. Lane Demas compares the acceptance and treatment of black student athletes by presenting compelling stories of those who integrated teams nationwide, and illuminates race relations in a number of regions, including the South, Midwest, West Coast, and Northeast. Focused case studies examine the University of California, Los Angeles in the late 1930s; integrated football in the Midwest

180 pages, Hardcover

First published February 26, 2010

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Using case studies, Demas argued that 1) collegiate football’s integration was a key part of the Civil Rights Movement’s cracking of Jim Crow 2) there was not a single pioneer athlete like Jackie Robinson or Joe Louis who cracked the color line. Demas uses four case studies to argue his point across time and locations. The first looked to the 1939-41 UCLA football teams, which saw five black players, including Jackie Robinson and Kenny Washington, in what was largely seen as a new experiment in prominently featuring black athletes. The second moves to the 1951 game between Drake University and Oklahoma A & M, where white player Wibanks Smith assaulted Johnny Bright during a play, breaking his jaw, and jarred open sympathy for Bright. The third moves to the debates surrounding the 1956 Sugar Bowl, where Georgia Tech almost did not play against Pitt because the segregationist governor threatened to pull the game because of a back-up black player on the Pitt team, which spurred a massive outturning of fan, player, and faculty support in Atlanta to have the game continue, showing that there was cracks in the loyalty to segregation in sports. Finally, in the fourth case study, Demas, examines the protest and expulsion of the “Black 14”, where 14 black players on University of Wyoming’s football team, who wore black arm bands to protest discrimination policies of the LDS church, were expelled from the team, and which saw the community support the actions of the coach.

Key Themes and Concepts
-The central role of college football in the South, and nationwide, and the actions and reactions to black players on teams helped push the Civil Rights struggles forward.
-There was no one pioneer, but many over time. It was a slow and steady inclusion of black players that ultimately doomed Jim Crow in collegiate football.