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The Stand, 50 Years Later

Posted: Jan 11th 2015 By: Ark Razor

This weekend marks the golden anniversary of likely the second most important event in racial history of American sports (#1 being Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in MLB).

Note that I did not give a date. It's either 1/10 or 1/11/1965 depending on what source is used. Speaking of sources, they are few and far between. The "Bible" on this event is a meager two-page article written in Sports Illustrated which is not available in their archives (never did show up regardless of what keywords I used). I actually had to travel to a library and find the article in print in their archives.

There is conflicting information about what actually happened. Everything was quickly brushed over, but believe me, there were 13, then 21, then 22 principled men that day that put their football careers on the line for it. No big $$$ "guaranteed" contracts, no grievances committees, their careers were on the line.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about the "negro" boycott of the 1965 AFL All-Star game in New Orleans.

Think about this a minute. This Cassius Clay had been gone for less than a year, being morphed into Muhammad Ali. No war protest yet. Tommie Smith and John Carlos? Try 1968.

Just because the Civil Rights Act had been passed barely 6 months earlier, doesn't mean that everything changed overnight. Heck, has everything changed over 50 years ? (Well, some things have)

The AFL, or American Football League (it's a shame I have to now define that for most of the readers) was formed by 8 entrepreneurs in late 1959 for play to start in 1960. Franchises were awarded to

New York

Boston (now New England)

Buffalo

Houston (now Tennessee)

Dallas (now Kansas City)

Denver

Oakland

Los Angeles (now San Diego)

Note the # of "warm weather" cities and note the two franchises in Texas..... 1960, before the Freedom Ride, Selma, and the Civil Rights Act.

To attract talent, the AFL owners wisely went after "negro" talent, which the NFL was more or less lukewarm on. They were successful. 22 of the 58 players scheduled to play (21 did) in the 1965 All-Star game were black. Only 15 of the 68 players scheduled to play in the 1965 NFL Pro Bowl were black.

There were problems though. In 1960, the eventual league champs, the Houston Oilers, only allowed blacks to sit in the end zone at Jeppeson Stadium. Lloyd Wells, a columnist for the predominantly black read Houston Defender newspaper, told the players they needed to strike. They did not, but Oiler owner Bud Adams, either out of a sense of what was right or what was smart, eliminated the policy for 1961.

In 1962, the San Diego Chargers (at the behest of HC Sid Gillman) made a daring decision to have blacks and whites room together when on the road. Fortunately, there were Hilton Hotels in Houston and Dallas, so rooming was not a problem. Huh? Oh, did I fail to mention that Barron Hilton was the first owner of the Chargers?!

However, in 1964, the Chargers played some pre-season games away from AFL venues. There was a game in Memphis, then Little Rock, and a game in Atlanta (this was before Atlanta had an NFL franchise). In Atlanta, a mixed group of Charger players went to a pool hall near their hotel. The "Big Cat" (yea, the awesome wrestler) Ernie Ladd and the rest of the blacks were told to leave the pool hall because they were not welcome.

The blacks refused to play the game the next day in Wickham Stadium. The mayor had to come to meet them for breakfast the next day to get them to play. Nothing really changed even though they played. That became a catalyst for (what an upcoming documentary that hopefully comes out this year) is known as The Stand.

Louisiana had a law in place which banned interracial sporting events until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in 1959. Undaunted, the legislature passed another law requiring segregated seating at Louisiana sporting events. That law got overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964.
So, even though as Oakland Raider RB Clem Daniels had stated, "The promoters of this game assured us that there would be no problems. Bring your wives and children. We're also having a golf tournament. It sounded like a big picnic.", can we be surprised that this isn't what happened?


At this point, I will bring Ron Mix into this story. Yea, Ron Mix, the white HOF OT who spent virtually all of his career with the San Diego Chargers. He played there for the entire life of the AFL.

You see, Mr. Mix, wrote probably wrote the most insightful commentary on this in his 1/18/65 Sports Illustrated article entitled "Was This Their Freedom Ride?".

Here is a sampling of how the blacks were treated after they got to New Orleans.

Sid Blanks was told by a Skycap at the airport that "coloreds" couldn't get any cab they wanted. Blanks BTW played for Houston and was a black captain of his mostly white Texas A&I football team while in college.

All of them had difficulty securing cabs from the airport to the hotel. Some were stranded at the airport for more than 3 hrs, others were dropped off many blocks from their destination.

Once they got to the hotel, things continued.

When Earl Faison checked into the hotel, someone said "Is that Ernie Ladd (Faison's teammate)?" Somebody else said, "No, Ernie Ladd is a bigger n--- than that. That ladd is a big n----."

Abner Haynes wanted to to go a certain nightclub and was taken to one a mile away where perverts hung out.

Many were refused admittance to nightspots, particularly on Bourbon Street.

Dick Westmoreland, Faison, and Ladd went out to try to see the town. They were refused admittance into several clubs. One was at gunpoint. A few other times "those n-----s" were told to leave and were told that JFK was not playing there tonight. When they tried to get a cab back to the hotel, they were refused. White teammate Walt Sweeney was ready to beat one of the cabbies up, but he was restrained by Ladd and Faison. They walked back.

Ernie Warlick was berated by a lady when he hung his coat near hers at a restaurant. Warlick BTW had spent 4 yrs in the military before playing in the AFL.

Daniels, met the white Goose Gonsoulin (both native Texans) for breakfast at the hotel. Daniels hung his coat up. An old lady came over and threw it down on the floor. At the behest of Gonsoulin, Daniels went back and put his coat back up. The lady came back and tossed it on the floor again.

At this time Ladd had contacted an Eastern counterpart, NY Jets OT Sherman Plunkett and they agreed to get blacks from both squads together to talk about this. They met in Room 990 of the Roosevelt Hotel.

In the meantime, Daniels and Gonsoulin had gone to the practice. With all of the other blacks missing, they came back after 15-20 minutes. As Gonsoulin said, "We agreed it wasn't right to stay."

The blacks were not entirely united in a decision to boycott the game. Their careers could be on the line.

The vote was a clear, but hardly unanimous, 13-8 to boycott the game if in New Orleans.

The other 8 agreed to support the boycott.

At this point, Ron Mix went to Sid Gillman and asked to talk to the players, led by his deluded thinking that he could change their position.

Mix, a Jew, was no stranger to discrimination himself and had felt some of it when in Germany in the summer of 1964. He took the basic position of (my paraphrase) "I agree with your cause, but this protest is not the way to accomplish this. It will hurt the other blacks here in N.O. and other civil rights groups."

Evidently, other blacks in leadership felt the same way.

NAACP New Orleans Chapter head Dave Morial (the future 1st black mayor of New Orleans) along with Dave Dixon (who was trying to get a pro football franchise in New Orleans) met and pled with the players to not boycott. But to no avail.

The boycott thinking had already come into the mindset of Cookie Gilchrist, an unofficial head of the group who had been vocal about the discrimination he felt in Canada while playing for the CFL. He refused induction into their HOF because (according to the London Free Press) he "stood up for principles at a time when black athletes were expected to remain silent."

Art Powell might have summarized their position the best when he told Mix, "Look we know we aren't going to change these people. But neither are they going to change us. We must act as our conscience dictates."

When Mix continued saying "O.K. Art, what about the thousands of negroes that cannot leave this place? I think that is a bad example for men in your position to set. The place stinks- so you leave."

Powell responded, "I suppose it would be better to stay here, and by doing so, imply that we accept such treatment for ourselves and our people? Do you want us to condone it?"

The die had been cast.

The players appointed Warlick to read a well-prepared statement

"The American Football League is progressing in great strides, and the Negro players feel they are playing a vital role in the league's progression. They are being treated fairly in all cities in the league. However, because of adverse conditions and discriminatory practices experienced by Negro players while here in New Orleans, the players feel they cannot perform 100 percent as expected in the All-Star Game and be treated differently."

Players started to leave.

Mix himself found himself very torn on the issue after the meeting.

While he did not support the idea of a boycott, he did support their goal. He immediately took his own stand. "I made a decision then that if the game were to go on despite the absence of the Negro players, I would not play. I felt it would be wrong in not playing but that it was important for at least one white player- if the game had to be played in New Orleans- to join the Negroes, to say, we're with you."

Mix put his career on the line then also. However, shortly after that, other white players joined, most notably, Jack Kemp (yes, he the Republican VP candidate of 1996) who happened to be the QB of the then league champ Buffalo Bills.

Within 24 hrs, AFL Commissioner Joe Foss announced the All-Star game would be played in Houston. The game in previous years had always been played in sunny San Diego. New Orleans represented a departure to begin with. The AFL for its part did cover the cost of relocating the game (with the All-Stars being the first "mixed contingent" to stay at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel). Only 15,446 attended though, well short of an expected sellout in the Sugar Bowl (not Superdome). This did adversely impact the AFL Pension Fund.

In a bit of dark humor, the "negros" found it easier to get a cab to the airport than from it. Warlick commented, "The same taxis that wouldn't give us a ride were now taking us in. So if we didn't do anything else, maybe that was one area where we brought about some change."

There is a legitimate point to be made that some players may have suffered repercussions after the boycott. Three were traded before the start of the 1965 season. Abner Haynes and Dave Grayson were traded from Kansas City to Denver and Oakland respectively. Gilchrist was also trade to Denver (the undisputed AFL bottom feeder) from league champ Buffalo.

The press, the AFL, virtually everybody dropped this story like a hot-potato. Without Mix's article, SI probably would not have mentioned it.

That, alas, has allowed a void to be filled by those with their own agendas..... namely the NFL.

In their depiction of the event at the HOF (and let's remember that even though it is called the "Pro Football HOF" it really is the NFL HOF. Only one player, Billy Shaw, has ever been inducted that did not play a game in the NFL), the NFL portrays themselves as an agent of change.

Sorry, that is no sale. Let's remember that the NFL AWARDED a franchise to New Orleans a little more than a year and a half after this event happened! Let's also remember that Atlanta got an NFL franchise less than a year after the pre-season game between the Jets and the Chargers (the pool hall incident).

The AFL, while apparently more open minded about the value of the black athlete, had also awarded an AFL franchise to Atlanta in June of 1965! The only reason the NFL got the franchise (and the AFL has played two exhibitions games there in 1962 and one in 1964) was that Pete Rozelle immediately flew down and insisted that Atlanta choose one or the other.

Undeterred, the AFL immediately awarded a franchise to Miami in the summer of 1965.

With that being said, I must emphasize the apparent differential of ownership between AFL and NFL owners. Here is the Big Cat himself:

"The AFL owners like Lamar Hunt (Chiefs) and Bud Adams (Oilers) and Sonny Werblin (Jets) and Barron Hilton (Chargers) were the greatest men I've known over the years. Our owners understood us, they took a stand, and they helped make pro football. The NFL had great players, but they weren't real men. Whatever the owners told them, they did. The AFL gave birth to men who would stand up and fight. There were no yellow-bellied cowards in the AFL."

Some argue that the event hastened a merger between the AFL and the NFL b/c the blacks in the NFL noticed.

So, while The Stand is indeed an important, yet forgotten civil rights event; there are some other things to be learned here....

1. The NFL has long had in its DNA an appearance of "caring" about social stuff, but really doesn't care- unless they think it's going to hurt their wallets. At the end of the day, the NFL is relentless about digging into your pockets.

2. The AFL might have felt the same way, but at least the players took advantage of an opportunity to stand together on principal even at their own cost. The owners quickly validated the players' actions.

Hannah Storm, are you listening?

However, I don't want that to be last point here. These 13, then 21 men took a real stand with a LOT on the line for them and their families.

Remember the 21 (* denotes deceased as of 1/10/15)

*Houston Antwine (Boston)

Bobby Bell (Kansas City)

Sid Blanks (Houston)

Willie Brown (Denver)

*Buck Buchanan (Kansas City)

*Frank Buncom (San Diego)

Butch Byrd (Buffalo)

Clem Daniels (Oakland)

Elbert Dubenion (Buffalo)

Earl Faison (San Diego)

Larry Garron (Boston)

*Cookie Gilchrist (Buffalo)

Dave Grayson (Kansas City)

Abner Haynes (Kansas City)

*Mack Lee Hill (Kansas City)

Winston Hill (New York)

*Ernie Ladd (San Diego)

*Sherman Plunkett (New York)

Art Powell (Oakland)

*Ernie Warlick (Buffalo)

Dick Westmoreland (San Diego)