Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Not strictly a pro football topic, but I have recently reached out to the sports information departments of a couple of historically black colleges, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M, to be specific, about players who were there in the 1950s and each time was told their information doesn't go back that far. It's a shame, because there were a lot of players recruited by the pros from those schools, especially in the early days of the AFL, and also because those schools deserve to know more about their history. It strikes me that this is perhaps football's equivalent to the Negro Leagues in baseball and would be a fruitful line of research for some enterprising historian. Or, maybe someone is already going there. Does anyone know of sources for pre-1960 historically black college football information?

ehaight wrote:Not strictly a pro football topic, but I have recently reached out to the sports information departments of a couple of historically black colleges, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M, to be specific, about players who were there in the 1950s and each time was told their information doesn't go back that far. It's a shame, because there were a lot of players recruited by the pros from those schools, especially in the early days of the AFL, and also because those schools deserve to know more about their history. It strikes me that this is perhaps football's equivalent to the Negro Leagues in baseball and would be a fruitful line of research for some enterprising historian. Or, maybe someone is already going there. Does anyone know of sources for pre-1960 historically black college football information?

You're right, that is a fertile ground for research. You're best bet are the newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender, Baltimore Afro American, etc.

A starting point are these two books: Hurd, Michael. Black College Football, 1892-1992: One Hundred Years of History, Education, and Pride. Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Pub., 1993. ISBN: 0898658829 9780898658828 OCLC Number: 28711000; and Saylor, Roger B. Historically Black Colleges Football Teams Record Book, 1892-1999. Hobe Sound, FL: Roger B. Saylor, 2000. OCLC Number: 166230715.

A more general work is Hawkins, Billy, Joseph Cooper, Akilah Carter-Francique, and J. Kenyatta Cavil, eds. The Athletic Experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities : Past, Present, and Persistence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. ISBN: 9781442253681 1442253681. OCLC Number: 907965602.

You can go to worldcat.org and use the OCLC numbers to find out if any libraries near you carry any of those books.

by ehaight » Thu Feb 18, 2016 12:40 pm
"Not strictly a pro football topic, but I have recently reached out to the sports information departments of a couple of historically black colleges, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M, to be specific, about players who were there in the 1950s and each time was told their information doesn't go back that far. It's a shame, because there were a lot of players recruited by the pros from those schools, especially in the early days of the AFL, and also because those schools deserve to know more about their history. It strikes me that this is perhaps football's equivalent to the Negro Leagues in baseball and would be a fruitful line of research for some enterprising historian. Or, maybe someone is already going there. Does anyone know of sources for pre-1960 historically black college football information?"

Your thread is certainly worthy of inclusion here - far more so than some of the posted nonsense by others
and spam by favored sons.

You might want to check the writings of two noted baseball authors.

Frank A ("Fay") Young appeared primarily in the Chicago Defender and the Indianapolis Recorder
- both black newspapers.
He died in 1959.

Wendell Smith wrote mostly for the Pittsburgh Courier and later for the Chicago Herald-American
and the Chicago Sun-Times. The Courier was black-owned.
He died in 1972.
Smith traveled with Jackie Robinson (assigned to write of his progress) during his last year in the Negro Leagues
and his rookie season with Brooklyn.
Robinson was a teammate of Kenny Washington so you can be quite sure two years together resulted
in some good football lore. Smith was selected to write Robinson's obituary.

So, those newspapers likely wrote of black sports other than baseball.

Additionally, Kansas State University,Tennessee State College and West Virginia State College have archives
concerning all black sports accomplishments.

There is also an Ebony magazine publication
"The black sportswriter: The Black athlete in the golden age of sports - part IX."
Whether or not there are parts I - VIII is not known.
There is a 1970 Ebony article referencing a number of black sportswriters.

You might also get some help from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

Good luck...

You can check with the "Intercollegiate Football Researchers Association". I know Tex Noel has a small college website (which covers HBCU's), sure he could also provide a lot of sources for you to check out.

If you or someone does put this information together, I'd be interested in it. So hopefully there's a follow-up post down the line.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I'm not planning to stray too far from my Raiders project, but I will be hunting down some of the materials mentioned. It's pretty surprising to run into a blank wall when looking for info that's not all that old. There are lots of good stories out there that haven't yet been told.

A couple of other sources - Arthur Ashe's A Hard Road to Glory and Ocania Chalk's Black College Sport.
I corresponded with Mr. Chalk quite a few years ago when I was involved with IBRO (boxing research)
and believe he is still alive in the Washington DC area although I no longer have a contact for him.
If you can locate him I'm sure he'd be able to provide other sources.

Hitchhiking on John Grasso's excellent suggestion, here is a little data to some of Chalk's work and the link to learn more.

Chalk devotes most of his energies to documenting obscure biographies and histories of athletes: Jackie Robinson is hardly mentioned, presumably because, Chalk tells us, he was preceded by a significant number of black baseball players, particularly in the last century. Chalk's account of blacks in basketball, football, and baseball plods through researched fact neglecting human warmth or sociological insight: he mentions football's caste system -- the exclusion of blacks from the ""thinking"" positions of quarterback, center, offensive guard, and middle-linebacker -- but fails to develop its history or meaning. The exception is his account of boxers, in which he explores the meaning of their personal lives in their careers as black sportsmen. But for the most part, as a record of subjects as dramatic as sports and racism, the book is surprisingly listless.

Strange that such a proponent of black athletic prowess would approach his work with a belief that no thought was needed
at the other ten positions on the defensive side of scrimmage and that tackles, running backs and receivers were mere thoughtless wonders.
That seems to be harsh and undue but if he avoids human warmth or sociological insight then he must be a stats rat's dream.
After all, if they maim, molest or murder, it is not reflected in their "stats" since it took place outside the white lines.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revi ... ack-sport/

John Grasso wrote:A couple of other sources - Arthur Ashe's A Hard Road to Glory and Ocania Chalk's Black College Sport.
I corresponded with Mr. Chalk quite a few years ago when I was involved with IBRO (boxing research)
and believe he is still alive in the Washington DC area although I no longer have a contact for him.
If you can locate him I'm sure he'd be able to provide other sources.

You've got to get to the point in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing - Arthur Ashe.

Love that one.

I came across this recently: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VM ... TF8&btkr=1. I'm not sure if it will help directly, but from the free sample available, it looks well written.