Recently Lebron James and Colin Kaepernick have chosen to take a stand on important social issues that we are facing as a nation. They follow a long history of athletes and sports figures that took stands on social issues. Sports figures have chosen to use their platform to protest social injustice for centuries.
Dating back to the chariot races and the Nika Revolt of 532 A.D., athletes have taken a stand for issues when they found injustice, Protests and riots followed in Constanipole for six weeks, resulting in the death of over 30,000 people after emperor Justinian refused to pardon two followers of the chariot drivers who had asked him for support.
In the centuries that followed American athletes and sports figures have used their platform to protest and stand up for those struggling for the justice supported by the U.S. constitution. They have stood up for race, gender, money and nationality in both American and Olympic sports history.
Oberlin College’s Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first African-American major league baseball player in 1884. When Cap Anson requested Walker’s team not play him against his Chicago White Sox team in an exhibition game in 1883, the Toledo manager refused. Anson gave in and the teams played the game. Walker one year later made the majors. However just three short years later owners in major league baseball barred black players from professional baseball. This decision stood until the spring of 1947 when Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke the color barrier. Rickey is widely recognized for his role in this monumental action but it was another event later that same year that demonstrates his influence and commitment to issues on social justice.
In late 1947 Rickey was involved in a major decision with much less notoriety that also involved breaking the color barrier. His alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan University was scheduled to play a homecoming football game at Rollins College in 1947. Rollins requested Ohio Wesleyan leave their talented player Kenneth Woodward home when traveling to Florida to play the game. Woodward happened to be the Battling Bishops lone black player.
Initially after discussions on campus, the Ohio Wesleyan student body voted 1,500-20 to leave Woodward home, but through the intervention of Branch Rickey, an OWU alumnus and member of the Ohio Wesleyan board of trustees, the other board members were convinced that they should travel everyone or no one. Allowing Ohio Wesleyan to play without Woodward would comprise the school’s integrity according to Rickey.
Rollins President, Hamilton Holt, was concerned about the history of racial violence in the state of Florida. It led the nation in per capita lynching from 1900 to 1930. The KKK was a powerful influence in the region and recent events like the 1920 Ocoee Massacre and the slaying of Southern Democrat Joseph Shoemaker in 1935 made Holt uneasy about playing the contest. The Rollins student council voted unanimously to cancel the homecoming game.
Holt made the following statement to his campus after cancelling the game; May I say this to you students; you will probably have critical decisions like this to make as you go through life—decisions that whatever you do, you will be misinterpreted, misunderstood, and reviled….It seemed to all of us that our loyalties to Rollins and its ideals were not to precipitate a crisis that might and probably would promote bad race relations, but to work quietly for better race relations, hoping and believing that time would be on our side.
Later Holt admitted the reason for cancelling the game was not the potential for violence but the collective will of the Winter Park community. The teams, with Woodward played in 1948. As for Kenneth Woodward, he graduated from Ohio Wesleyan and was a member of their board of trustees, went to medical school, and led a distinguished career as a doctor, administrator, and teacher until his death in 1996. Branch Rickey passed away in 1965 after a long career as a sports executive.
Many of us have opportunities in life to take a stand on an issue. Most of us don’t. In one year, Branch Rickey did it twice. President Hamilton Holt and Rollins made a decision as well. Holt later admitted it was not right. Hamilton Holt was a committed champion of equal rights. After the Rollins board cancelled the 1947 game, Holt offered educator and civil-rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune an honorary degree. His board of trustees refused to recognize her. In 1949, Holt awarded Mary McLeod Bethune an honorary degree during his last commencement. Rollins became the first institution of higher learning to award an honorary degree to an African-American.
These are just a couple examples of how sports can help implement change in society. As we face today’s tough times, I wonder who we will look back on in future decades and say they made a difference.
Oh Geez Sports 