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00:02Recorder? Okay.
00:14The following is a special presentation of HBO's Sports of the Twentieth Century.
00:20Sports of the Twentieth Century. It's been way too long, brother.
00:26Nearly 150 years ago, college football took root in the North.
00:31As it migrated south, it assumed a religious significance,
00:35with a passion unrivaled in any other region of the country.
00:42Over the next century, games played across the South
00:46embodied deeply held traditions that some felt would never die.
00:53Now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
00:59Those who dared to challenge those traditions did so at great peril.
01:03I will die standing up for the freedom of America.
01:07Some fought their battles in the streets, others on college campuses,
01:12still others on collegiate football fields.
01:18For many, it was an act of sheer bravery to take the field.
01:23In the face of untold abuse, they stood up to the system
01:28in the name of integrating their schools and conferences.
01:32The legacies of their struggles echo across every football field in the South.
01:47The stadium in Birmingham is like stadiums in a lot of major cities.
01:51There are in basically economically depressed areas or what have you, poor areas,
01:56and in some cases black areas.
01:58Well, the stadium wasn't too far from where we lived.
02:00So on those Saturdays, our neighborhoods were just invaded by white people.
02:08My dad hated it.
02:09He hated when Auburn played Alabama or when Alabama played in the town
02:13because they came to our neighborhoods and they took over.
02:16And it wasn't to see us.
02:17It wasn't to speak to us.
02:18It wasn't to say hey to us.
02:19It was to go to the football game.
02:20And so you really had nothing to do with it.
02:24It was a divided culture, of course, because there was segregation.
02:28I remember when Dr. King came to Birmingham, Alabama,
02:32he said, this town is as segregated as Johannesburg, South Africa.
02:40And he was right.
02:41I'm in Ram, Alabama, the toughest city in the United States in race relations.
02:47When you thought of Birmingham, you thought of Bull Connor, the public safety commissioner.
02:51Whoa, whoa, whoa.
02:52Well, Dr. King, I think, was exaggerating.
02:55It wasn't the toughest city in the U.S. as far as race relations.
03:01It was one of.
03:02It was just the toughest city in the U.S. on race relations that was big.
03:09They did them a lot worse in a small town where there was nobody to hold them accountable.
03:16You've got to keep the white and the black.
03:19You thought of fire poses.
03:21You thought of the ferocious attack dogs.
03:24There's no doubt that police brutality is a reality in Alabama.
03:29I don't know how anybody who kind of just fell out of space and saw some of this stuff,
03:35and you think, God, what's going on in this country?
03:37A man or men threw a bomb into a Negro church and killed four Negro girls who had been at
03:43Sunday school.
03:44You can travel across this entire land.
03:47There ain't no place like Birmingham.
03:51I think that happened right down the street from where my grandmother was on my dad's side.
03:58Where we talk about segregation occurring, most generally, are the states of the former Confederacy.
04:05And in terms of football, we're talking about a footprint that is going to include three major conferences.
04:11By the mid-50s, the three southern conferences, the Atlantic Coast, the Southwest, and the Southeastern,
04:20stretched across 13 states from Texas to Maryland.
04:25We're talking about a region in the country that is defined by the institution of slavery.
04:32We are talking about a region in the country that is going to be branded with the Civil War.
04:38We are talking about a region in the country that does not escape its past.
04:52By the mid-1950s, only a handful of southern schools had integrated campuses.
04:58Much of the region still resisted.
05:00But now, then, they want to come into our school to play football on the team out here with your
05:05boys.
05:06We have no intention whatsoever, and we shall not integrate our schools.
05:14In 1954, the Supreme Court, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, declared that separate but equal education
05:22was illegal.
05:23Yep.
05:26However, much of the South ignored the ruling.
05:29I hope to go on and become a student that will be a credit to the university.
05:34In 1956, Authorine Lucy made a brief but failed attempt to integrate the University of Alabama.
05:42There are death threats. There are people following her. She's being heckled.
05:46She's having a very difficult time at the university.
05:49It's not a successful attempt because there's not much institutional backing to give this woman a chance to succeed.
05:57Alabama's refusal to integrate its classrooms meant that its football program, once the pride of the South, remained all white.
06:04But with the civil rights movement about to turn its attention to Alabama, the football program was in for a
06:10shake-up.
06:11The first sign of change was a new coach.
06:15The Alabama football program that Paul Bryant inherited in 1958 was an absolute shambles.
06:20J.B. Ears Whitworth was an incredibly inept coach.
06:23He had won four games in three years, including a winless season in 1955.
06:29Bryant comes in, and the team travels in coats and ties, starts making them go to class.
06:37There was a real feeling that there was a new sheriff in town, and particularly the team began to have
06:43some romance about it.
06:45Paul Bryant began his coaching career at the University of Maryland in 1945.
06:51After turning the program around in a single season, Bryant left for Kentucky, which a couple years later would have
06:57the only integrated student body in the SEC.
07:00Bryant saw an opportunity.
07:02Bryant wanted to integrate the University of Kentucky program.
07:06Kentucky isn't a great football state, so maybe by expanding the net and including African Americans, he will have a
07:15better team.
07:16But according to those who were around at the time, the president, Dr. Donovan, was afraid that if they integrated
07:23the athletic program,
07:24they would be risking their membership in the Southeastern Conference, which was Lily White.
07:28Nonetheless, Bryant again proved to be a winner, and in 1950 led Kentucky to its first SEC championship.
07:38After a stint at Texas A&M, he landed his dream job.
07:42I'm Paul Bryant, football coach, University of Alabama.
07:46Bryant's mandate was to rebuild Alabama's football program.
07:50But in the midst of escalating civil rights activities, it wasn't long before outside influences were being felt.
07:56He won five games in 1958.
07:58In 1959, they won seven games and went back in the bowls.
08:03Fans are in the stands for the first edition of a new postseason grid event, the Liberty Bowl.
08:08When Alabama went off to play Penn State in the Liberty Bowl, many members of the Alabama Board of Trustees
08:14wanted to boycott the game because Penn State was integrated.
08:20Despite the objections at home, Bryant made the decision to play.
08:24I think the reason he accepted that Liberty Bowl game, I don't think it was a racial fixture as much
08:29as he wanted to get some national recognition for him and the team and the university.
08:35Alabama lost the Liberty Bowl, but Bryant had turned the team's fortunes around.
08:40In 1961, the Crimson Tide went undefeated, giving Bryant his first national championship.
08:48Alabama was again the class of the nation, and Bryant was calling all the shots.
08:53We're particularly proud of our seniors because in four years they wound up being what I think is the best
08:58team in the United States.
09:00By the fall of 1962, half the universities in the south had integrated their campuses.
09:07In Mississippi, change would come, but not without a fight.
09:11Governor Ross Barnett again refused to permit Negro student James Meredith to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
09:21Go on, Meredith!
09:22When James Meredith applied, the governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, was determined to resist.
09:30Are you with us in this fight?
09:32Yeah!
09:33He was an active member of the White Citizens Council in the 1950s, and in fact his gubernatorial speech was
09:41never, never will I allow this great university to be immigrated.
09:46We'll close the University of Mississippi.
09:48Well, for a football player, that means you're going to close our season.
09:53Optimism had been running high on the Oxford campus as the Ole Miss Rebel football team was poised to take
09:59a run at their second national championship in three years.
10:03I'm not sitting there thinking about is it morally right or wrong to support James Meredith's admission.
10:09I was thinking about the football season. Is it in jeopardy?
10:14On Saturday, September 29th, Governor Barnett made one last gesture in his attempt to keep Ole Miss all white.
10:22It's Saturday afternoon, and while we're preparing for a football game that night, Ross Barnett's on the telephone finalizing a
10:30deal.
10:30Governor, this is the President speaking.
10:32In the days leading up to Saturday, the Kennedy White House negotiated with Barnett to enforce the Supreme Court ruling
10:38that gave Meredith the right to admission at the University of Mississippi.
10:43Under the Constitution, I have to carry that order out. Now I'd like to get your help in doing that.
10:47To maintain calm, Barnett and Kennedy agreed that Meredith would register for classes 180 miles away on the Jackson campus.
10:56In our locker room, we knew nothing about this. We had a football game to play. What was going on
11:02between the Kennedys and the Barnetts were the furthest thing from our minds.
11:07Ole Miss had won its season opener and was leading Kentucky 7-0 at the half.
11:13When we came out of the locker room for the second half, the strangest sight I've ever seen on a
11:19football field, that the 50-yard line at a microphone was Governor Ross Barnett.
11:25He had taken over the football field.
11:32The crowd's going wide. They're standing, waving Confederate flags.
11:38It really brought to my mind Nuremberg, a grand arena, and here's the Hitler of the day whipping up the
11:46crowd.
11:46I love Mississippi!
11:49It was almost surreal.
11:51I love her people!
11:53Then the last part of it could only mean one thing.
11:57I love and I respect our heritage!
12:01I love white supremacy.
12:03I love the way we do things here.
12:06And nobody outside this area really understands that.
12:10We take the field and we play a magnificent second half.
12:14And we win the game.
12:17Ross Barnett went back to the Governor's Mansion.
12:19And he said to his aides, did you hear the roar of the crowd?
12:24So he picked up the telephone and called Kennedy and said, the deal is off.
12:28How can I violate my oath of office?
12:31How can I do that and live with the people of Mississippi?
12:35Despite Barnett's refusal, President Kennedy ordered Meredith to register at the Oxford campus under federal protection.
12:43Meredith is due to arrive Sunday.
12:46What I remember specifically on Sunday morning is the roar of aircraft overhead.
12:52And we learned that it was the first wave of federal protection.
12:55And they're in full riot regalia.
12:58And of course, we all went over to see what was happening.
13:04The President and Mississippi.
13:07Mr. James Meredith is now in residence on the campus of the University of Mississippi.
13:13You have a great tradition to uphold on the gridiron as well as the university campus.
13:20And the honor of your university and state are in the balance.
13:25At almost exactly the same time that he said that, things are clearly out of control.
13:31There was violence.
13:34And then every one of the marshals opened up the pair of tear gas canisters.
13:39It sounded like the beginning of a war.
13:43We all ran.
13:44They've got some high-powered rifles up there that have been shooting sporadically.
13:48This man has just died. He died?
13:50What?
13:50You see, we've got to get order up there and that's what we thought we'd have.
13:53And in a sense, our greatest fears were being realized.
13:57All of this political involvement is threatening our season.
14:02Rioting by students and outside agitators continued until early Monday,
14:06when nearly 20,000 federal troops arrived on campus and managed to restore order.
14:12Later that morning, Meredith officially became a student at Ole Miss.
14:16But the imposing military presence made the Oxford campus feel like a war zone.
14:22We'd go out to the practice field and we can't practice because it's taken over by the military.
14:28I mean, you talk about politics taking over football and doing it all in the name of keeping an institution
14:35all white,
14:36which meant keeping the football team all white.
14:40Once calm prevailed, the Ole Miss Rebels settled back into football and did not lose a game.
14:46They won the nation.
14:50On campus, football was again the rallying cry.
14:54Well done.
14:55I think for many in the student body, for alumni, certainly for the people in the state of Mississippi,
15:01this was something of a vindication.
15:03Football was something of a resurgence of state pride.
15:06To Governor Barnett's dismay, Meredith stayed at Ole Miss and became the first black student to graduate from the university.
15:15For southern schools like Ole Miss, the next hurdle would be the football field.
15:24Nice.
15:30In 1963, the civil rights movement gained momentum.
15:35And in cities throughout the south, voices of protest were being sounded.
15:39It was a very heavy time to be living and to be a college student in the 60s with all
15:44of this going on.
15:45You know, you felt like you had some purpose in life.
15:48Fortunately, living in Washington, D.C., of course, I had the opportunity to see a lot of the activities firsthand.
15:54I was at the march when Martin Luther King made the great speech.
15:59I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its
16:10dreams.
16:11We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
16:19As I started getting into this football thing, I would reflect back on that.
16:24I would start thinking about this dream, you know, that one day every man would be equal.
16:30And the words of his speech came into play.
16:34Free Atlanta! Free Atlanta!
16:37Take for the money!
16:42Wow.
16:44Often forgotten are the many foot soldiers who waged the battle against segregation on the field.
16:49One soldier at the front line of that battle was Darrell Hill.
16:54One day I get a call from Lee Corsa, who was the freshman coach at Maryland.
16:59Lee Corsa just retired.
17:01Lee said, Darrell, we'd like you to come play football here in Maryland.
17:04And my reaction was, you know, Lee, I want to play some football.
17:08I don't know about being Jackie Robinson here.
17:11Hill had been a pioneer everywhere he went, first at his Washington, D.C. high school,
17:17then during his brief tenure at the Naval Academy as a member of the freshman team with Roger Staubach.
17:23He was about to break ground again as the first black football player in the South.
17:29They had bylaws, see, an agreement among member teams that you will not play black athletes, see.
17:35In fact, Clemson and South Carolina threatened to leave the conference.
17:41In a time of uncertainty, Hill found a friend and supporter on campus.
17:46We wound up in the same economics class together.
17:50And this stuff was going over my head and Darrell wasn't even taking notes.
17:55I realized that Darrell was a brilliant student, so I made an offer.
17:59You get me through school, and I'll look out for you on the football field when we're traveling in the
18:05South.
18:06The bond between Hill and Fishman led to their unique nickname.
18:10We were roommates, and he being the only black and me being the only Jew, we used to call ourselves
18:16the only.
18:16And Darrell and I would find ourselves in different situations because we were out on the street together.
18:23We go to a Woolworths, and we sit at this lunch count.
18:27And, of course, you've got to remember, this is right doing the sit-ins.
18:31They come down and they serve everybody.
18:34Get down to me, and they said,
18:37Sorry, but we don't serve colored people here.
18:41And I said, Well, we don't eat them, so you better get us some cokes.
18:44So I got upset and just the counteroff of all the trays and plates that were stacked up.
18:50I'm saying, Fishman, you know, you're crazy, you know.
18:53You can't do this.
18:54I said, You're Jewish, but you don't have a Star of David on your forehead.
18:58I'm out here by myself.
19:01Now, you know, he didn't realize how volatile that could be in Durham, North Carolina in 1963.
19:08When it came to volatility within black activist circles, Hill found it in abundance.
19:13One of the prominent civil rights activist groups was a group called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC.
19:23He was headed up by a brilliant young man. His name was Stokely Carmichael.
19:29And his deputy was a very volatile young man named H. Rapp Brown.
19:35One thing we found out about the honky. You give him an inch, you want a yard. You give him
19:40a yard, he'll burn a cross on it every time.
19:45They were students at Howard University.
19:47One day Carmichael and Brown came to me and said, Look, we'd like you to lead some demonstrations out at
19:55Maryland.
19:56And I said, Well, wait a minute. I don't have time to be leading demonstrations. You know, I'm playing football.
20:04I mean, that's my role in the movement.
20:06And then, Rapp Brown, who was very volatile, called me a punk.
20:11Of course, I slammed him into the wall. Carmichael had to get between us.
20:16And so, Stokely finally said, Look, he's doing more than enough playing football and integrating athletics in the South.
20:25I bet you never called me a punk again.
20:28One of the toughest places I played was Clemson University.
20:30And a 50,000 drunk southern gentleman are waiting for to see this brother come out on the field.
20:41It was, Kill the nigger. The nigger ain't playing. We were shocked.
20:46Not a black person in the stands anyway. The black people had to sit outside the stadium on a red
20:53dirt hill called Nigger Hill.
20:55And that's where they watched the game.
20:57To know that you're going to be the target of this hatred had to play on his mind.
21:03Talk about double team. I was triple D.
21:07Every time I would look up there and see these black people sitting on this dirt hill, I said, There's
21:14something wrong with this picture.
21:15This has got to be fixed. Now I'm mad. So I said, I'm going to show these folks.
21:19Well, I caught ten balls, which set an ACC single game pass captain record.
21:25We stood for a long time. And I can remember they came down from the hill when the game was
21:30over to the bus.
21:31And were congratulating me. And that was a good feeling. That was a real good feeling.
21:36Darrell is an absolute hero. I mean, I have one piece of memorabilia in my life, and it's a picture
21:43of Darrell Hill on my wall.
21:45And that's the only one I have, and it's the only one I'll ever have.
21:48My first thought, and I made the statement about not trying to be Jackie Robinson, I rapidly blew out of
21:55that.
21:55And it came around to the point that, you know, I do have a role and do have a mission
22:00here, and what I'm doing is very valuable.
22:03In 1963, the Atlantic Coast Conference underwent racial progress, with the University of Maryland integrating its football field.
22:13But farther south in Alabama, progress was moving in reverse.
22:17Yeah, of course, of course, Maryland was integrating.
22:21Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
22:27George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama, and took office in January 1963.
22:33My father ran for governor in 1958 as a moderate on the issue of race and segregation, and he lost.
22:41He said, I talked about roads and economic development and education and quality of life issues, and they just sat
22:47there.
22:48And he said, I talked about segregation, and they stomped the floor.
22:52And so in 1962, when he ran again, he made a bargain, if you will, to get elected.
22:59He recognized that the candidate most likely to win is a candidate who said, nigga, nigga, nigga, the loudest.
23:09In his first term as governor, Wallace proclaimed his agenda with the defining gesture of his career.
23:15The University of Alabama campus at Tuscaloosa is under a tight security guard of state police,
23:21as Governor George Wallace prepares to prevent two Negro students from registering at the last all-white state university.
23:28Eventually, Wallace moved aside, and James Hood and Vivian Malone became Alabama's first black students.
23:36The face of the university had changed forever.
23:44The question remained, how would integration affect the school's football program?
23:53By the mid-60s, Alabama had become a national powerhouse.
23:58From 1960 to 1966, Paul Bear Bryant's University of Alabama teams put together a combined record of 68-6-3.
24:09This is by far the most successful football team in the country during this era.
24:15The team's success had lifted Bryant to iconic status in the South.
24:19Coach Bryant is getting the victory ride on the show.
24:22Coach Bryant was so popular, I'm not sure that he's not the only man in Alabama.
24:26My dad probably feared running against him at that time.
24:29Congratulations. You're one of the greatest.
24:31During the 60s, the only thing that people in the state of Alabama could be proud of was the football
24:37team.
24:38Bear Bryant was like a hero here in the state of Alabama.
24:42Everybody knew Bear Bryant. Who was the president?
24:45Do they have a president? What's it?
24:48It was the Bear and his football.
24:50Get that teacher!
24:52He gave to white Alabamians a respect from the people in the rest of the country that they got from
25:00no other source.
25:01Give a little hug, yeah.
25:03Alabama was now defined by its football and its politics.
25:08The old metaphor about you don't want to wrestle the pig because you'll get muddy and the pig will enjoy
25:13it.
25:13And I think that's very much the attitude that Bryant had toward Wallace.
25:17It was clear that they both kept their distance.
25:21Bryant was also trying to keep his distance from the politics at the time.
25:25But the issue of race was becoming unavoidable.
25:28There was an article in the Look magazine in November of 1965 and there was a piece in there on
25:34Bryant and said,
25:35we're not recruiting black players now, but it's going to be real soon that it's coming, you know, to Alabama
25:40and all the SEC.
25:41On the field, Bryant was still on top and by 1965 had won three national championships.
25:48But winning with all white players was sending its own message.
25:52The winning ability of Bear Bryant solidified the political dogma of George Wallace.
26:00As long as they were winning with white players, they were going to stick with the white players.
26:04I hated the University of Alabama sports and I wanted them to lose.
26:08By 1966, playing in an all-white conference was beginning to pose a problem for Alabama.
26:14They started out as the two-time defending national champion.
26:18Started the season preseason number one.
26:21Won all of our games.
26:23I don't think there were 50 points scored on us the entire game, the entire year total.
26:29And wound up number three.
26:31Notre Dame and Michigan State were ranked one and two.
26:34And yet Alabama, the only team with an unblemished record, was ranked third.
26:40Many people posit the idea that because they didn't leave their small section of the country to play integrated teams,
26:49that this was a message to them.
26:52Little known during this period is that Alabama was trying to schedule a good integrated team from the North,
26:58including Boston College, but they wouldn't come to Alabama to play.
27:02Because of George Wallace and Bill Connor and all of the negativity swirling in the ether.
27:06And at a staff meeting later, Coach Bryant got up before his assistants and apologized.
27:12And said, I take full responsibility for losing the national championship.
27:17And he said, I make this promise to you now.
27:19We will play tougher opponents and we will have black faces in our lineup.
27:24Though the team remained all white, the future was not lost on Bryant.
27:28He came over, I'll never forget, he came over and talked to us.
27:32He said, you got a boy named Davis up there, a fullback.
27:35He said, I want him so bad, I don't know what to do, but I can't take him now.
27:40He says, the people, the alumni is not ready for black players.
27:44But one day I'll be able to get those good ballplayers.
27:47The time is not right, they won't let me take them here.
27:51But had it been left to the bear, he would have taken them right then and there.
27:54He was after a bowl player.
28:05Though the seeds of integration had begun spreading in the ACC,
28:09the two other southern conferences resisted.
28:12Black student athletes, talented enough to play college ball, still had to look elsewhere.
28:17I started thinking about this whole issue of race, about segregation, about having a degree.
28:23So I called the college coach at Morgan, told him who I was, told him I was interested in attending
28:28his school.
28:30Baltimore's Morgan State University is one of many historically black schools found mostly in the south.
28:36Their purpose was to give black students the same opportunities as whites, in the classroom and on the field.
28:43It had nothing to do with playing ball.
28:45It had to do with paying for the education, but there was no logic in thinking about pro football
28:49because there were no black middle linebackers playing full time.
28:52But by going to Morgan State, Lanier was able to play middle linebacker,
28:56which, along with quarterback, was considered a white player's position.
29:00For Lanier, attending a black college also gave him a sense of belonging, both socially and culturally.
29:07I was told by my high school coach that the University of Missouri with Dan Devine, he had indicated some
29:14interest.
29:15But that would have been a great challenge going from Virginia to Missouri.
29:19The social involvement would probably have been zero.
29:21And coming from a segregated environment, well that was not something I would have had interest in anyway.
29:25In part, as a result of segregation, the football programs at black colleges were highly successful.
29:33Historically black colleges had all the talent.
29:35And in having all the talent, the performance level was extremely high.
29:39The schools were coached by legendary figures.
29:42Eddie Robinson.
29:42Eddie Robinson at Grambling, Jake Gaither at Florida A&M, and Earl Banks at Morgan State.
29:49It's no wonder these schools became a breeding ground for the NFL.
29:53Willie Lanier, Art Schell, Deacon Jones, I think Willie Brown.
30:02Yeah, a lot of those guys.
30:05Hall of Famers in the NFL.
30:06Between 1960 and 1970, over 300 players were drafted by professional teams.
30:12I only played in two losing games at Morgan.
30:15We ended up playing in three bowl games while I was there, two against Florida A&M and one against
30:20Westchester.
30:20In a tangerine bowl.
30:22It was one of the few times in history that a black school was invited to play an integrated team
30:28in a big time bowl.
30:31It's not a traditional black bowl.
30:34Westchester State College, which is a predominantly white team, which we had never played.
30:39It was one of then really seeing how you measured against that team.
30:43Morgan State beat Westchester 14-6 to cap its undefeated season, and Willie Lanier was the game's MVP.
30:52But for Lanier, the victory was about much more than football.
30:56For us, it was one of another step in a maturation process at a college that was trying to prepare
31:01you for the bigger world.
31:02And the bigger world involved, obviously, the white world versus everything being in the black sphere.
31:09And I think that became a very positive aspect of that.
31:13Lanier graduated from Morgan State and in 1967 began his Hall of Fame career as a middle linebacker with the
31:19Kansas City Chiefs.
31:22Another NFL draft pick that same year took a different path to the pros.
31:27I just want to go to Texas.
31:36I told Dale Royal, and I said, Coach, can I come to the University of Texas?
31:42He said, Bubba, I could probably get you a scholarship, but I don't know when the football program is going
31:53to integrate.
31:54Bubba Smith attended high school in Beaumont, Texas.
31:57But like other Southern blacks, he would have to leave home to play big-time college ball.
32:02In the 1960s, Duffy Dougherty was running the football equivalent of the Underground Railroad,
32:08bringing Southern blacks to Michigan State and building a powerhouse around them.
32:13Foremost was the great Bubba Smith.
32:15When I got up there, it was like, where am I?
32:21I had never talked to a white person before.
32:24What?
32:2447,000 students there, and 360 are black.
32:33And Duffy had already told us that, you know, you can't date any white girls.
32:40Everywhere he went, Smith experienced culture shock.
32:45I had never seen any snow other than on TV.
32:52And I went to sleep, and I woke up the next morning and they had snow everywhere.
32:58And I'm cool, got my books, going to class, hit some ice and wind, feet went up in the air.
33:08And I turned around and went back to my room and said, no, I don't like the snow.
33:14My mother made sure that we had grits and eggs and bacon and toast.
33:21And I get up there, hash browns.
33:27But the other is hash browns for breakfast.
33:30And I'm looking for something to eat.
33:33And I saw these things that look like saltine crackers.
33:39And I grabbed one, I bent on it, and it tastes like paper.
33:46And I said, what is this?
33:48Mozza.
33:50You know, I said, Mozza?
33:55They got a food named Mozza?
33:58After that I asked about everything, before I stuck it in my mouth.
34:04I got homesick and, you know, they were trying to get me to go to spring break.
34:10And I said, shit, I'm going home, man.
34:15You know, we have a party every night at Miles.
34:19Bubba Smith had an extraordinary college career.
34:22He was a two-time All-American and a number one draft pick.
34:26But not being able to play in his home state of Texas still hurts.
34:31I didn't have no good.
34:33The only thing I wanted to know was, why is it that you don't like me and you don't even
34:41know me?
34:43In 1966, while Smith was still at Michigan State, the Southwest Conference underwent a great change.
34:51John Westbrook became a non-scholarship player at Baylor University.
34:55And at Southern Methodist, the football coach made integration his goal.
34:59As a youngster, I'd grown up with the African-Americans out in the little west Texas town of Odessa.
35:06If we rode the bus, they had to sit in the back of the bus.
35:10About eighth or ninth grade, it dawned on me, something's not right.
35:14And so I made a commitment.
35:16If I ever got into a position where I could help my black friends, I was going to do it.
35:21And so when I was offered the head job at SMU, I said, yeah, I'll take it if you will
35:28let me bring in some black players.
35:31Frankly, it took us two years of screening to find Jerry Levise.
35:36Well, I grew up in Beaumont, Texas.
35:39When I came out of high school, I had some 90 to 100 different offers, but there were none from
35:44the Southwest Conference.
35:45All of a sudden, one day in the afternoon, my coach called me and said, Jerry, there's somebody that wants
35:51to talk to you.
35:52Coach Fry walks in, and he says, I'm Hayden Fry, and I want to talk to you about going to
35:57school.
35:58My father, sitting in the corner, didn't ask anything except for, where is this school located?
36:04And he said, in Dallas. He said, Dallas? He said, they shot the president. They might shoot my son.
36:10It was going to be difficult. There wasn't any questions. Why?
36:13He would be the first African American in the Southwest Conference on scholarship.
36:20Once at SMU, Levise found out just what he was in for.
36:24The first day of practice when I realized this was going to be tough, when your own teammate spits on
36:29you,
36:30and you're on the ground about to get up, and then he kicks you in the back and breaks your
36:34ribs.
36:35The pain Levise would be forced to endure was not limited to the football field.
36:40I would start receiving hate mail, and people telling me, you know, sending me one-way tickets back to Africa.
36:46A lot of people did not want their sons to play with me, so it wasn't the best part of
36:51my life.
36:52He'd come in, and he'd have his head down, and I'd say, Levi, you got a problem? Tell me about
36:58it.
36:58Coach Fry used to tell me his old saying was, if you don't want them to go, don't let them
37:04know where it's headed.
37:06I had to learn to not feel sorry for myself. Even when I wanted to cry, I couldn't.
37:12And that just became me. You know, no emotions. I was in a world by myself.
37:17In his first varsity season, 1966, Levise made his presence known.
37:24Levise, look at those hands.
37:26Levise led SMU into national contention.
37:31Touchdown, SMU!
37:33If we beat TCU, we win the conference championship.
37:37You ride into the stadium, I get off the bus, I got these policemen escorting me into the stadium,
37:43and I'm thinking, hey, man, big game, movie star, red carpet treatment and everything, so I'm huge.
37:49I'm the star.
37:50But it wasn't the fans Levise needed protection from.
37:54A phone call to the university warned of a possible tragedy.
37:59The threat was that I was going to be shot.
38:02And there was going to be a sniper in the stands.
38:04So he said, Levi, your life's been threatened.
38:06And he said, we're going to do what we can to protect you.
38:08So, okay, coach, if you say so, I'm fine.
38:12I'm going to play. There's no problem with me.
38:15Playing under a cloud of fear, Levise was undaunted.
38:19He caught a 65-yard touchdown pass and led SMU to its first conference title in 18 years.
38:26Southern Methodist ended the season ranked ninth in the nation.
38:29A turnaround not possible without Levise.
38:33The game was over with. You look around.
38:35It's like a skunk in the locker room.
38:37Everybody else is gone.
38:38Of course, I had that one alternative.
38:41The door was always open for me to leave, but I didn't want to let coach Fry down
38:45because he put his livelihood, his family's life, and everybody on the line for me.
38:52By internalizing the abuse he suffered at SMU, Levise managed to survive.
38:57But midway through his senior year, he had had enough.
39:00One football game in particular, a young man on the other team tackled him.
39:05Good, clean, hard tackle, but he rolled over on top of Jerry, spit in his face,
39:10made some real strong racial remarks.
39:13I lost it. I quit. I came to the sidelines, I threw my helmet down, and I told Coach Fry,
39:19I quit. I don't have to take this shit.
39:21He was crying. It was a tie ball game at the time, 14-14.
39:26And I told Jerry, I said, Jerry, I said, are you going to let a guy like that help defeat
39:31us?
39:32I get up, fired up, and I run off into the field, and I'm going out there.
39:36I'm a running back, and I'm steamed. I'm hating. I'm hating.
39:39He runs out to the, about the hash mark on the field, and he turns around, and this is like
39:44the Babe Ruth story,
39:45where Babe Ruth pointed his bat and told the youngster, I'm going to hit a home run for you.
39:50Jerry turned around, and he said, Coach, I'm going to run this punt back all the way.
39:5688 or 89 yards after he caught the punt, crisscrossing the field, and he makes a touchdown,
40:03and we win the ball game, 21-14.
40:05He's fast.
40:07That's the worst touchdown because it broke me.
40:10I did it out of hate, not for the love of the game.
40:16And that hate kind of carried me on a little bit and changed my whole personality.
40:22And that's the first time I've ever really hated white people.
40:28I think it crippled me.
40:31Despite the scars Leviath endured, his courage helped open doors in the Southwest Conference.
40:38Still healing. Yeah, still healing 40 years later.
40:45Hmm.
40:51By 1966, the SEC was the only segregated conference left in the country.
40:57That year, Kentucky awarded football scholarships to African Americans Nat Northington and Greg Page.
41:03But NCAA rules prevented freshmen from playing varsity, so the pair were a year away from their historic season.
41:10In the meantime, they helped recruit black high school players for Kentucky and went after Lexington's own Wilbur Hackett.
41:19Greg's pitch to me was, we need your help.
41:22We need more African Americans to come here to the University of Kentucky to play.
41:27You know, our friends, they couldn't understand why in the world we would let our son go to the University
41:33of Kentucky.
41:33But he said they really wanted him there, it would be good for the school, and it would be good
41:39for Kentucky.
41:41In 1967, Hackett accepted a scholarship along with African American running back, Houston Hogg.
41:47As the season approached, Page and Northington, now eligible to play varsity, stood on the precipice of history.
41:54But first, they would have to endure preseason practice.
41:59They were doing what we call a pursuit drill.
42:02It's where the runner goes to one side, and everybody pursues to the ball.
42:07But when Greg got there first, someone hit him in the back, and Greg fell to the ground.
42:14I don't think he ever became conscious.
42:17Page suffered a spinal injury and died 38 days later.
42:20What?
42:21Northington, left to integrate the SEC by himself, soon became despondent, and confided in freshman players Hackett and Hogg.
42:29He said, I don't have anybody I can really talk to about what's going on with me.
42:33He said, but I really need to go.
42:35You all have to stay.
42:36He said, because somebody's got to do this, and you all have got to do it.
42:40He said, but personally, he said, I can't handle it anymore.
42:43He quietly, he left, and he didn't tell the coaches or anything.
42:48I wanted to leave too.
42:50Of course, my parents encouraged me to stay.
42:52You knew when you came, it was not going to be easy, but you chose this path, and don't let
43:03nobody take it away from you.
43:06Carrying on the mission, Hackett and Hogg returned to Kentucky for their sophomore season.
43:12Their first road game came against Ole Miss, where memories of James Meredith's ordeal were still fresh.
43:18We purposely missed the bus, and we weren't going to Jackson, Mississippi.
43:23We were afraid to go.
43:24We just didn't want to go.
43:25His mother and I talked about it all week.
43:29Oh, honey, I just think, one of us, we all try to go.
43:33But when I looked around at the crowd, it looked like, it looked more like a lynch mob than a
43:40football stadium full of fans.
43:42When Wilbur saw me, I can truly say it was one time that I can say son was glad to
43:50see father.
43:51Father was glad to see son.
43:54They almost cried.
43:55So I was just glad he was there for that support.
44:00They did let me stand down on the sideline, and there was some comments behind me about this young man.
44:10They were calling him Leroy.
44:12The state troopers had no problem making their little comments like, hit Leroy again.
44:16So instead of using the N word, they used the word Leroy.
44:20But on the very next play, this Leroy bussed through Mississippi's line, and the next thing I know, they were
44:31helping Archie Manning off the ground.
44:36And I turned around and I said, boy, did you see what Leroy did?
44:40And I shut up after that.
44:44Despite the ugly abuse, Hackett could claim a measure of victory.
44:48It made me feel ten feet tall because of the fact that here is something that I have wanted to
44:58do all my life.
45:00And now I am able to sit here and watch my son perform on that football field.
45:08For Hackett and other groundbreakers like him, performing on the football field was not their only responsibility.
45:16Integration is like being dropped behind enemy lines.
45:19The big thing about integration was they weren't going to take on your customs and your things.
45:25You had to totally assimilate.
45:28Tom Gossam was the first African American athlete to graduate from Alabama's Auburn University.
45:35And left the comfort of segregation for the discomfort of integration.
45:42But as time went on, the black pioneers wanted more than just a place on campus.
45:47They wanted a voice.
45:49We ended up having a march to the president's office.
45:53Probably the funniest march you've ever seen because there's only about 12 of us, 15 of us.
45:58Nobody even knew we were marching. They just figured we were going to lunch or something.
46:02But assistant head football coach told us that we couldn't do things like that because we were football players.
46:08The best thing we could do for black people would to be good on the field.
46:13The games we played were far more important than who won and who lost.
46:18Because all the black people in the state were countless.
46:21We were doing what they never had the chance to do.
46:25But we were doing it as an extension of them.
46:28We were carrying all their hopes.
46:31It was all on us.
46:33And so it made, yeah, it made it very, very difficult.
46:35It was always about more than the game.
46:39Always about more than the game.
46:41Though all three conferences were now integrated.
46:44Many teams still were not, including Alabama.
46:48And while Bryant bided his time, he kept his coach's eyes sharp.
46:52The old legend of Alabama lore is that Bear Bryant reportedly said,
46:56I won't be the first to integrate, but I won't be the third.
47:00In the spring of 1967, Alabama convened for its football practice.
47:04And something was a little different.
47:06Five African-Americans walked on to the Alabama football team.
47:09Players who don't have scholarships, but basically want to go out for the team.
47:14We were pretty well loaded with personnel then.
47:17They were contributors, but they weren't deliverers.
47:21In other words, they get to play, but not accomplish that much.
47:27None of the original five African-American walk-ons made the team.
47:30That's what got me first involved about changing the football program, suing Bear Bryant.
47:36Not that much has really changed concerning the black students' position on campus.
47:44Frustrated over waiting for their football program to integrate,
47:48Alabama's African-American Student Association filed suit in July 1969.
47:54I actually met with Bear Bryant to suggest to him that he should spend more effort in trying to recruit
48:03black players.
48:05His initial response was that he couldn't find any.
48:09Well, we haven't had so far, many, if any, that qualified academically and athletically both.
48:19But before the suit went to trial, everything changed.
48:23In January 1970, the NCAA added an extra game to the college schedule.
48:30Bryant used the opportunity to make good on his promise to play better teams.
48:34He knew just who to call.
48:36Paul Bryant and John McKay, their friendship was unbelievable.
48:41Coach McKay's USC Trojans were as dominant in the West as Bryant's Crimson Tide had been in the South.
48:49Coach says, Paul, what's this all about?
48:53He says, John, how would you all, like, come down and play us in Alabama next year?
48:58And I didn't realize what we were getting into. I really didn't.
49:02USC was coming off an undeeded season.
49:05Alabama, which had won three national championships in the 60s,
49:09was trying to recover from a subpar year.
49:11But the dynamics of this game were undeniable.
49:15Having an all-black backfield, led by a black quarterback in Birmingham, Alabama, in the Deep South,
49:22going against a team that was all white.
49:25Here it is, Legion Field, just a few blocks from where Bull Connor pushed Alabama a little deeper into the
49:32darkness.
49:33Just a few blocks from the 16th Street Baptist Church where those four little girls were murdered in the name
49:39of segregation.
49:40This is a great moment for Alabama, because this is a moment when Alabama transcended its history.
49:47Knock them down! Knock them down!
49:48Coach Bryant just, he sort of set the tone for everything, and he just approached it like he would any
49:55other game.
49:55He never made any reference to the fact that there were African-American athletes and we were going to be
50:01playing against them.
50:02On Friday, September 11th, USC flew to Alabama.
50:06The reception in Birmingham was unlike any they had ever seen.
50:10Now everyone's nervous because it's the first game of the year.
50:13But going there, and then the reception we received, my goodness, everyone in the state was there.
50:19Every high school band they could find, thousands of people cheering, not a black face at the airport.
50:24When we rode down the streets, you'd see people on their front porches or hanging out the windows,
50:29and you could feel that the African-Americans in Alabama at that time were rooting for us
50:34because it was another opportunity to step up and say, yes, we can.
50:38I remember asking my father before I went on this trip, I said, well, you know, what should I do?
50:45How should I act?
50:46And, you know, he sat there for a couple of minutes and looked at me and he said, well, don't
50:50do anything stupid.
50:51Be respectful of how the way things are down there.
50:54Many of us had no idea of what the South was really like other than what we'd seen on TV
50:59and what we read.
51:00The guys talked about the weapons, we're going to need to have weapons with us and all that kind of
51:05stuff.
51:06And, uh, Toady, I'm going to take me a gun, man. I'm going to take me a gun.
51:11Toady Smith, Bubba's younger brother, had grown up in segregated Beaumont, Texas.
51:17And lo and behold, we get down to Alabama and we're in the, uh, hotel.
51:22All of a sudden, Toady goes to his bag and pulls out this gun and breaks.
51:27Hey, man, you did bring a gun. Man, put that thing away.
51:32Are you crazy? What's going on? Hey, man, I don't know what's going to happen down here.
51:37Well, I just remember there was a lot of excitement in the air.
51:40It was something new. We'd never played any California teams, teams from the West Coast.
51:44What surprised me was that it was not on television. It was a Saturday night game.
51:48And the place was jammed. You couldn't get a seat in there.
51:52When they played that Alabama fight, I thought, man, they'd go nuts.
51:58You couldn't get a ticket. In fact, I don't remember how I got an hour or two at that time.
52:03Pretty good seats. About the 40-yard line, midway.
52:07I was a USC fan first that night, but I was second.
52:10When the USC's team came out on the field, this fan said,
52:18I thought we were supposed to be playing some school from California.
52:22Hell, that's Gremlin.
52:26First game, Sam Cunningham ever played, and I said, Coach, why don't we take a look at this kid from
52:31Santa Barbara?
52:33We put him in there, and wow.
52:35I remember Sam Cunningham doing wind sprints up and down the field.
52:41First two or three positions of the football on either side,
52:45we realized we were in for a bad, bad, bad night.
52:48He taught us how a fullback's supposed to run with a football.
52:51Sam Cunningham's first varsity game was unforgettable.
52:56He scored two touchdowns in the first quarter and ran for 135 yards.
53:02Even though it was 42-21, the game was over long before,
53:07so they had a long time to think about what happened that evening.
53:10I just remember how happy all the black people were that they'd beaten them,
53:16and they'd beaten them with black guys.
53:19We had something to prove.
53:21It's hard to believe, to fathom, that you're witnessing history,
53:25witnessing what you had always wanted to be and see.
53:28I was proud of them.
53:30Because black players had played a very important role in that game.
53:34It wasn't just that they were on the team.
53:35They were running all over people.
53:37And finally, here's Coach Brian, who's an imposing man.
53:41And he's smiling, and he says,
53:43John, I can't thank you all for what you did for me today.
53:48And I went, why?
53:50I think he really wanted to make a statement to the fans of Alabama,
53:57to say, look, folks, if we're going to compete in the 1970s,
54:01skin color should not matter any longer.
54:04In an irony not lost on those who were there,
54:07Birmingham, the center of unrest during the Civil Rights era,
54:11had become the stage for a game that symbolized racial progress.
54:16The stadium's nearly empty.
54:19Outside we hear a roar.
54:20What is it? We don't know.
54:23Hundreds of black people have gathered outside the stadium,
54:25who could not go in the stadium,
54:27don't have tickets to that stadium,
54:29and they've never really been in that stadium.
54:31But they're listening on transistor radios,
54:33and celebrating our victory.
54:35You could see the pride in their eyes as if they had played the game
54:38and had won the game themselves.
54:40It was a really good feeling.
54:42I think that we might have done something very, very significant
54:45for our African-American brothers and sisters who were in the Deep South.
54:49It was a monumental thing.
54:51It was as big as many of the things that happened in the Civil Rights movement.
54:57And of course, the scuttlebutt on the streets was that
55:00Sam Cunningham did more for integration than Martin Luther King.
55:05He probably had nothing to do with Alabama integrating.
55:09Probably what he had something to do with those 73,000 fans
55:12that were sitting in that stands and saw Sam Cunningham,
55:15and they said, good gosh, we've got to get us a Sam Cunningham.
55:19I remember there was an incident the next morning
55:22when I was sitting having breakfast before I was to catch my plane out of Birmingham.
55:26I overheard some Alabamians a table or two away, and I remember one of the men said,
55:35boy, I bet the Bear wishes he had some of them Negro boys on his team.
55:41They were huge.
55:43And that told me right there that I think Bear Bryant was crazy like a fox to schedule this game.
55:50Regardless of his reasons for playing USC, Bryant had already signed his first black player.
55:56Sitting in the crowd was freshman Wilbur Jackson, who had accepted a scholarship before the season started.
56:03Bryant added his second black player the next year in 1971,
56:07when junior college transfer John Mitchell became the school's first African American to play in a varsity game.
56:14The tide had finally turned at Alabama.
56:17Coach Bryant was surrounded by reporters, and one reporter asked him,
56:22how many black players you have? Coach Bryant answered and said, I don't have any black players.
56:26He said, okay, well, how many white players you have? Coach Bryant said, I don't have any white players.
56:31I have names.
56:31He said, I just have players.
56:34Coach Bryant was one of the best players you can get, and with him, he didn't care what color you
56:38were,
56:39as long as you could come there and be an asset to the university, be a good student, and play
56:43good football.
56:45By 1972, the last of the all-white teams joined Alabama,
56:50and for the first time, every major football program in America was integrated.
56:57Yeah.
57:18As Alabama and the rest of the South embraced integration,
57:22Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide returned to prominence, winning three national championships in the 1970s.
57:29It was an honor to play for a great coach, to get a great education, and stay right there in
57:35the state of Alabama,
57:36where your family, friends could watch you play every week.
57:40Alabama's success was emblematic of far greater changes across the South.
57:45The long and painstaking struggle to integrate college football had at last come to an end.
57:50The burden was there. It became clear to me how important it was not to fail.
57:57In no small measure, college football had played a role in the integration of the South.
58:03I do get a great feeling when a lot of young men know about my story, and they come by
58:10and they say thank you.
58:11I think I did something good. I did something great. And I'm just really beginning to appreciate that.
58:18Those who a decade earlier had stood up to bigotry could not help but feel a sense of pride at
58:24the legacy they had made possible.
58:26When I look around and I see eleven African-American football players on defense, and I look over there and
58:34there's a black quarterback,
58:36it makes me feel good just because I know where it was and where it is now.
58:41And I'll bättre and walk around and bring your環legt Protestant with a honor.
58:48Congrats on King Richard Wagner!
58:48Now you've heard an average kid, a enrollment go away!
58:52It raises a level of great success!