Today, a lot of old Black men will be rooting for the KC Chiefs. It has nothing to do with Taylor Swift, a Black QB or Travis Kelce's pioneering haircut. It's about HBCUs, Black history, a kidnapping & white affirmative action. How Racism Invented the Super Bowl A thread.
Pro football existed before the NFL. Independent football teams played each other & they even crowned a "national champion." Remember, many colleges were segregated, which meant a lot of the BEST football players played at HBCUs, Ivy League colleges & on the West Coast.
Meanwhile, the biggest PRO football clubs were in the midwest, especially Ohio. Usually, these teams were all-white. But as it became more competitive, midwest football clubs began hiring Black and Native American players anywhere they could find them. They wanted to win.
For instance, in 1919, the Rock Island Independents were tired of being also-rans. So they signed Bobby Marshall, a Black player who basically led a crew that went from team to team in Minnesota. They only lost one game on their way to winning the national championship.
So, on August 20, 1920, the Independents and 10 other teams met in a car dealership in Canton, Ohio to form the American Professional Football Conference, which we now call the NFL. Initially, the NFL teams could still play against non-NFL teams.
So when the Independents opened the 1920 season against the non-NFL St. Paul Ideals, it was STILL technically the NFL's first game and Bobby Marshall was STILL the first Black player to play in the NFL. He was 40 years old Marshall DEFINITELY wouldn't win the next championship.
See, as soon as they joined the NFL, the Akron Pros knew they had to step their game up. They had been 5-5 the previous year, so they hired Fritz Pollard to play QB. At the time, Pollard owned every college accolade imaginable, so this made sense, right? Not really
First of all, he hadn't played organized football in FOUR YEARS. He was a coach at Lincoln U (he led them to 2 undefeated seasons). Yes, he was the first Black player to play in the ROse Bowl and was a consensus all-American, but there's one other thing you should know:
He wasn't a quarterback. He played RB in college. Anyway, to make a long story short, Fritz Pollard the other "first" Black NFL player led the Akron pros to an undefeated season and the NFL's very first championship. The next year, the Akron Pros named him co-head coach.
Marshall eventually opened his own law firm (did I mention he was a lawyer). J Mayo Williams, another one of the NFL's first Black players, left to start a record label & pioneer the industry that we now call "pop music." They called it "race music." chicagomag.com/arts-culture/m…
Paul Robeson also played in the1921 season. Anyway, Black players were integral to the NFL's founding. At the open of the 1927 season, every single Black player was kicked out of the NFL. No one knows why. No one has ever explained what happened. (We know what happened)
After protests the NFL allowed 1 Black player each season. Not one per team. One. TOTAL. In 1933, Boston Braves owner George Preston Marshall bought franchise. Marshall was rich & the NFL wanted him, so they agreed to his one condition: No Black players. He got his color line.