African-Americans. This was partly a matter of geography. Pro football was almost entirely a product of the Midwest, where racial attitudes were, in the main, less hardened and hostile than in the South. Of the 18 NFL franchises in 1922, 12 were based in just four states (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin) and one (the Oorang Indians) was a traveling team composed entirely of Native Americans.
It was also a matter of practicality.
âIt was hardly clear that any pro football league would survive,â writes Levy, âmuch less one that was all black or all white. The idea of segregation, or any other sort of segmenting, could not be considered, no matter how some owners may have wished to do so.â Considering the leagueâs tenuous finances, a color line would have been unenforceable anyway. Clubs that violated it could have been fined or boycotted, but what good would it have done the fledgling league to drive clubs out of business?
âIt was not that owners of early professional football teams wanted African-American athletes to play,â Levy writes, âthey simply could not do much to stop anyone else from employing them.â
Then George Preston Marshall came along.
Marshall was a failed actor who made his money in linen: He owned a chain of laundries in Washington. In 1932, he and two partners bought a defunct NFL franchise in Newark and moved it to Boston. They christened the team the Braves, after the cityâs National League baseball team (now the Atlanta Braves), with whom they shared a ballpark (Braves Field). The Braves lost $46,000 in their inaugural season. Marshallâs partners wanted out and he obliged them. In 1933, Marshall renamed the team the Redskins and moved it a mile east to Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox.
Marshall shook up the nascent NFL. His was the first team to hire a marching band and put on lavish halftime shows. He persuaded his fellow owners to split the league into two divisions and stage an annual championship game, presaging the Super Bowlby more than three decades. He also convinced them to change the rules to make the game more exciting. Restrictions on throwing the ball were lifted. The forward pass, formerly as popular as a soup line, suddenly became fashionable. Marshall was a showman and an innovator.
He was also a racist. Born in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1896 and raised in Washington, D.C., Marshall was the product of a rigidly segregated culture. In the Washington of his youth, every public institution maintained separate facilities for whites and blacks: schools, churches, restaurants, hotels, trolleys, swimming pools, ballparks. It seemed only logical to him that professional football should be likewise constituted.
At a league meeting shortly after the conclusion of the 1933 season, Marshall urged his peers to adopt a color line just like baseballâs. The discussion was off the record, naturally, but Marshallâs argument is easy to surmise: The country is in a depression. With so many whites out of work, how will it look if we go on hiring Negroes? It could lead to trouble.
Marshall was not beloved by his colleagues. He was arrogant, boorish, and a bit of a bully. Perhaps thatâs why the other owners often acquiesced to his demands. On the whole, it was easier to go along with George than to fight him. Or, perhaps, they held deep biases of their own. Whatever their motives, pro footballâs owners made their own âgentlemenâs agreement.â And with the league now financially stable, the agreement was enforceable.
Joe Lillard, a black halfback who had led the Chicago Cardinals in scoring in 1933, was not invited back to the team in 1934. Ray Kemp, whoâd played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1933, was likewise dismissed. In fact, African-Americans would not be welcomed back to the NFL for 13 years.
Years later, the owners would deny colluding to exclude African-Americans. Steelers owner Art Rooney
It was also a matter of practicality.
âIt was hardly clear that any pro football league would survive,â writes Levy, âmuch less one that was all black or all white. The idea of segregation, or any other sort of segmenting, could not be considered, no matter how some owners may have wished to do so.â Considering the leagueâs tenuous finances, a color line would have been unenforceable anyway. Clubs that violated it could have been fined or boycotted, but what good would it have done the fledgling league to drive clubs out of business?
âIt was not that owners of early professional football teams wanted African-American athletes to play,â Levy writes, âthey simply could not do much to stop anyone else from employing them.â
Then George Preston Marshall came along.
Marshall was a failed actor who made his money in linen: He owned a chain of laundries in Washington. In 1932, he and two partners bought a defunct NFL franchise in Newark and moved it to Boston. They christened the team the Braves, after the cityâs National League baseball team (now the Atlanta Braves), with whom they shared a ballpark (Braves Field). The Braves lost $46,000 in their inaugural season. Marshallâs partners wanted out and he obliged them. In 1933, Marshall renamed the team the Redskins and moved it a mile east to Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox.
Marshall shook up the nascent NFL. His was the first team to hire a marching band and put on lavish halftime shows. He persuaded his fellow owners to split the league into two divisions and stage an annual championship game, presaging the Super Bowlby more than three decades. He also convinced them to change the rules to make the game more exciting. Restrictions on throwing the ball were lifted. The forward pass, formerly as popular as a soup line, suddenly became fashionable. Marshall was a showman and an innovator.
He was also a racist. Born in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1896 and raised in Washington, D.C., Marshall was the product of a rigidly segregated culture. In the Washington of his youth, every public institution maintained separate facilities for whites and blacks: schools, churches, restaurants, hotels, trolleys, swimming pools, ballparks. It seemed only logical to him that professional football should be likewise constituted.
At a league meeting shortly after the conclusion of the 1933 season, Marshall urged his peers to adopt a color line just like baseballâs. The discussion was off the record, naturally, but Marshallâs argument is easy to surmise: The country is in a depression. With so many whites out of work, how will it look if we go on hiring Negroes? It could lead to trouble.
Marshall was not beloved by his colleagues. He was arrogant, boorish, and a bit of a bully. Perhaps thatâs why the other owners often acquiesced to his demands. On the whole, it was easier to go along with George than to fight him. Or, perhaps, they held deep biases of their own. Whatever their motives, pro footballâs owners made their own âgentlemenâs agreement.â And with the league now financially stable, the agreement was enforceable.
Joe Lillard, a black halfback who had led the Chicago Cardinals in scoring in 1933, was not invited back to the team in 1934. Ray Kemp, whoâd played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1933, was likewise dismissed. In fact, African-Americans would not be welcomed back to the NFL for 13 years.
Years later, the owners would deny colluding to exclude African-Americans. Steelers owner Art Rooney
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