That Time Nazis Marched for Washington's All-White Football Team

[ismnotwasm]

Currently, Washington, DC's pro football team, the [Redacted], has the distinction of being the only team in the NFL whose name is a racial slur. A little more than 50 years ago, it had another unfortunate distinction: It was the last remaining all-white team in the league.


The struggle to integrate Washington's football team is recounted in Thomas G. Smith's 2012 book, Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins. As Smith tells it, the showdown began in 1961, when John F. Kennedy's interior secretary, Stewart Udall, who'd committed to ending segregation anywhere in his sphere of influence, declared his intent to break pro football's last color bar. Udall later recalled, "I considered it outrageous that the Redskins were the last team in the NFL to have a lily-white policy."

The call for integration was met with opposition, most notably from the team's owner, George Preston Marshall, a laundromat magnate turned NFL bigwig who had held firm for years. As legendary Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich wrote:

For the 24 years when he was identified as the leading racist in the NFL, he simply stared down the criticism of his refusal to sign a black player. It was the only subject on which the voluble Marshall never expressed a public opinion, never resorted to a quip. But he bristled when this columnist reminded him in print that "the Redskins colors are burgundy, gold and Caucasian."

Marshall appeared as outraged by federal interference as he was by the prospect of diversity. "Why Negroes particularly?" he asked. "Why not make us hire a player from another race? In fact, why not a woman? Of course, we have had players who played like girls, but never an actual girl player." The controversy drew out assorted bigots, including neo-Nazis (above), who protested on Marshall's behalf to "Keep [the] Redskins White."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/11/nazis-desegregating-washington-nfl-football-team

[uponit7771]

1. +1

[Blue_Tires]

2. And not only that, Washington was at the time

the unofficial "team of the south" since there were no other teams in the south at that time...The bulk of the fanbase easily stretched down to South Carolina, if not farther..

Wow...It boggles the mind that just 16 years after the end of WWII clowns could run around Washington in Nazi outfits...

[Ohio Joe]

3. K&R - nt

[monmouth3]

4. America has a sad story on racial issues...sigh..

[Jamaal510]

6. "Keep Redskins White"

Did these people not realize how ridiculous that sounds? Not only because the team loses money from closing its doors to chunks of the population, but also because "Redskins" is a (derogatory) term that refers to Native Americans. If the team were named the Washington Whiteskins, then maybe it would be a different story. I don't know.

[ismnotwasm]

7. I know this is so entrenched yet so offensive

I thought a little historical perspective would be interesting.