Robert Griffin III by Ted Kluck

Author:Ted Kluck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

The Washington Redskins were the last NFL team to integrate, doing so in 1962 when they were threatened by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. Referring to the Redskins as the “Paleskins,” Udall let owner George Preston Marshall know that unless the Redskins signed a black player, they would no longer have use of D.C. Stadium, which happened to be publicly financed and managed by the parks system.

The 1960 Redskins were dreadful at 1-9-2, and by the mid-1950s, they were the only team in the NFL without a black player. At the close of 1960, there was an average of six black players per team, and many more in the rival American Football League.

George Preston Marshall, Washington’s owner, was savaged in the local press for his “white supremacist policies” that were meant to appease a predominantly Southern radio and television audience. For many years the Redskins were the NFL’s southernmost franchise; and to that point, the Redskins had passed on drafting such black stars as Jim Brown, Jim Parker, Roosevelt Grier, Roosevelt Brown, and Bobby Mitchell, just to name a few. In the 1960 draft alone, they shunned Elijah Pitts and Irv Cross, opting instead to draft Wake Forest quarterback Norm Snead along with seven other white players. Wrote Tex Maule in Sports Illustrated, “Snead faces the blackest future and the whitest huddle in the league.”3

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