Be chosen by you or would somebody else have been chosen just in retrospect . In retrospect somebody else would have probably been chosen. Are you going to tell us who . Here is the reason why i say that. Jackie robinson was chosen during world war ii. The best afterricanamerican Baseball Players were in the war so they werent even here. So maybe he was one of the better players. He was an excellent joychoice w you look back on it. I know he needed someone who was comfortable playing with white players because that was going to be a completely new environment. Jackie had that. Funny thing is willy brown becomes the third player and i mentioned that he left the st. Louis browns and never came pack. One of the reasons was because he wasnt like jackie. I interviewed his wife and she said he did what he all did. He complained. When he got to the browns he complained because he used a 40 ounce bat and his players were playing with 32. He said how do you guys play with 32 ounce bats. Where are your real bats. That didnt make him too popular. He still hit a home run with a 32. The other thing is after he got back to the hotel he would go out at night. His wife said they are watching you. He couldnt be anybody but m himself. Even though he was a great ball player but he wouldnt have been the best fit. There were some great Young Players that came up later. They wanted some older players. There were still some great older players still around. Campanella who came up later with the dodgers would have been an excellent choice. He later on was. I might mention one thing that because i could probably name half a dozen who would have been good players who came up later but interesting thing about Jackie Robinson, the brooklyn dodgers actually stole Jackie Robinson from the monarchs, they never compensated the monarchs at all. So wilconson and john bare who had part ownership they couldnt say anything because they would be looked on about holding the black player back. Remember this is a business. So they didnt see anything but quietly they had their own boyco boycott. You will notice no kansas city monarch ever plays for the kansas city dodgers again. The brooklyn dodgers had many great player buzz they didns bu have any from the kansas city monarchs. The monarchs sent more to the big leagues than any other negro team. Do you have a record of anthony kansas, monarchs . Sure. My dad played for anthony booster against the monarchs about 90 years ago, i think. If theres some way you could i really appreciate it because its been a long time since i even knew about my dad has been gone 50 years. Okay. Well, i tell you what. They definitely did play anthony kansas. Was i was coming down the free way im driving past all of these places i know the monarchs played. Of course they played at fort raleigh. Junction city. Manhatt manhattan. I could keep on going out west. Practically any city which was a city had a Baseball Team and they had a Little Kansas league that they would play in. So the monarchs came in and played all of those cities if not one year, different years. So i would do some research and get your name out. I would be happy to supply that information. 1959, satchel came out and spent the summer there, pitched for the blue jays. Unfortunately, we still as a team suffered under the discrimination scenarios. They didnt spend many nights overnight but they travelled by bus and of course after the game liked to eat somewhere. There were many times and the time i remember was in mcferson where they told satchel he would have to go in the back door if he wanted to eat and the whole team got up and left. I command the manager and sponsor for that. I was fortunate to be bat buy boy so i got to see him and other players. As late as 1959 blackba ball players were still suffering under that scenario. I appreciate that comment. You would enjoy this, i was in nevada last sunday and there was a player who played for the mcfurson team and played against satchel page and was on the team as well. Satchel page let me put this t this way. Kansas had its own unique form of racism. I know a little bit about boxing and boxing was considered a contact sport so until 1938, i think it was 38 was the first year they would let black amateur boxers fight white fi fighters to qualify. They had to fight other black fighters in kansas. In certain sports they have high school rules. When they considered basketball a contact sport. So many black rules couldnt play against white cools because those were some of the rules. Slowly those rules have disappeared. It was pretty tough times. There was a gentleman by the name of actually he has he has a couple of grandsons im going to call his name in a minute but he played for the Colorado Springs sky sox. He told me the story his name was sam harrison. He told me when he played for the sky sox he said he had to go in the back so he would go in the back of the restaurant where the cooks were and all the cooks were black. So hed go back there and the players would go in the front so they are sitting out in the restaurant and you know, they pay 5 they get their meal whatever it was. It probably didnt cost 5 back then so he was in the back. So he was eating twice as much food. When he would leave, they would give him a to go sack. So he would leave and he would tell me stories about that night. His teammates said hey what did your people put in that sack for you because they were hungry again and he was the only one with the sack. Sam harriston, of course he had two sons who played in the big leagues and has two fwragrandso who played in the big leagues so i guess he did pretty good. Was the barn storming something all the Negro League Teams did or was it just pretty much what the monarchs what they wanted to do . Yeah. All the teams tried. I will put it that way because you could see it was very lucrative in the money but youn had to build up a tradition. So two of the greatest barn storming teams were the kansas city monarchs and braves. They tie it up, kansas, nebraska, parts of colorado. Arkansas. They dominated that area. There was a great white storming team the house of david which was booked by tom bare and they also booked the kansas city monarchs. They would bring for us the house of david who come in and pretty much beat them because they had great player as well. So the monarch wouls would beat team and they would turn around and book a game in the town. The kansas cisicity monarchs agt the house of david. They did this all over the country. Barn storming was intelligent moves from the money side. The teams who barn storms the best survived the long e. , longest. If we dont have any if we dont have any additional questions, i want to rooemind y that fphil will be available to sign a copy of his book. We want to thank him for coming out here. American history t. V. In prime time continues in a moment way discussion of racism in sports over the years. Former pro athletes bill russell and tim brown tell their stories. A look at when walking was the nations most popular spectator sport. Now the history of racial equality in professional sports. Former basketball player bill russell and former Football Player jim brown talk about their struggles. They discuss the role of africanamericans in college and professional sports today. This panel from the Lyndon Johnsons president ial summary civil rights summit is about an hour m. Good afternoon. Por my name is mike cramer. Im the director of the texas we program and sports and media e here at the university of texast we are pleased to partner againe with the lbj library. This is our fifth event we haveo partnered with them. This is on sports in society cgr that was founded by one of the distinguished alumnis. Ha we are police e pleased to part on many occasions. We also have an interesting war, timing w of this today. Yesterday, one of our participants, dr. Harry edwardsv moment, we formally announced that we have established a permanent lecture at the on university of texas called the dr. Harry edwards lecture on sports in society. [ applause ]ts we couldnt possibly find a wars better person in the history ofn sports and civil rights than dre harry edwards. He was gracious enough to lend his name to that lecture. We expect we will have several presentations under that name in the coming years. D civi today is we have a conversation thats going to occur on the area of sports and yea civil rights. Ive been a part of many panelsn and many presentations over the years. Normally, you try and find the best panelists and the best people to make that presentation. People rarely do you have the people, the top people who are presenting. Ind other words, if had you to pick one, two and three, rarely do you get one, two and three. Today we are fortunate that we k in the last 50 years. W we aree ecstatic, pleased, prou that we can present them and have a conversation with them with you today. Let me say that again. 0 we have here probably the top ] three people in this area in the last 50 years. [ applause ] so let me get on with the program. Its them you are here to see. L. Id like to introduce to you dr. Harry edwards, mr. Bill russell, mr. Jim brown. [ applause ]h. Take it away. Thank you very much. Its a real pleasure to be here with two men that i have known t forouc about the last 45 or 50 years. If you hear a touch of respect and affection in t my voice during the course of o this conversation, you have me correctly. I want t to begin by stating thc there have been four athletes over the last half of the 20th o century who have been utterly transformative. Of course, is the s immortal Jackie Robinson. Ble m [ applause ] mr. Bill russell. [ applause ]an the third is the incomparable mr. Jim brown. [ applause ] and the fourth is the absolutele unconcurable, miss billy jean r i want to focus on the struggle at the intereface of race and f sports. I went back and read jim and f bills first two books. Jim browns off my chest and out of bounds and bill russells goal for glory and second win. Day bec for athletes because they say where we have come from and the for them to be g where they are today. As the things that stuck with me about those books and reading them was, first, how well the f philosophies, the perspectives, the ethical arguments and so forth of jim and bill have stood up over the last 50 years. The second thing is that they u were super starrap agthletes whr they stood up. They were super t starrage athletes when they stood up. They never were willing to Exchange White racism for blackm orthodox. They were all about the people. I their argument was, and that i as a man am part of the people and i insist on being respectedb as such throughout that theis books. And then the fourth thing that s really blew me away and that i find amazing to this day is how young they were. We are talking about 22, 23, 24 years old. Ent what we call today a young sando adult. X aware of consigning an entire a4 generation of y people to sand o citizenship. They were speaking out at 24 years old when this happened. So i would like, first of all, to go back to that time and im going to exercise my prerogat e prerogatives as the only 72yearold up here and call you young men by your first names. And ask about what took you to , that place . How did you end up at that place . Why dont we start, jim, with terms of this. How do you end up in that placet at 23, 24 years old . I was very fortunate to havea a great mother, no father. Went to high school with a great coach. A great mentor, kenny malloy and they were impeccable from the ,l standpointf of advocating education, selfdetermination. And i had an example of the us people that were really good. W there was tremendous ld discrimination in this country at the time. It was told to me that i could be loved and popular if i would bow down and do a little dance. L i dont know if you know what but i said, i dont really dance. Er t [ laughter ] pay i just prefer to be a man. An american citizen. M, and i pay my taxes. Justic i want my rights. So freedom, equality and justice is what i pursued it at all coso because nothing else would substitute for that. , no trophy, no form of popularity. Because i was helped as a youngo man, i knew that my lifes work would be to help others. W so thats what you have here. Ok . [ applause ] bill, what took you down that path that you took . Be i was reading gore for glory and you stated, i have never r been one to pursue being liked. From day one, i was about being respe respected. What took you down that path att 23, 24 years old . My well, i guess it started wheu i was born. My mother and father, the first thing i knew about life was my mother and father loved me. And my mother i was born in 1930s in louisiana. My mother our first any conversation, she said to me, theres nobody on this planet any better than you. Also, theres nobody on this planet that you are better than them. So and so i grew with confidence that i was okay. Ather and my mother and father always treated each other with respect. And so what i went out into the world, thats the way i thoughtw it was supposed to be. Dokay. Yo and did everything you couldu t change it to make that way when wasnt . Huh . Mother did everything to make it is that way when it wasnt . My mother told me what i was young, she says to me one day, m you cane. Play in the front yar for the first time. She had kept me in the backyard all the time. She said, the reason i want you to play in the front yard is y h peoplein will walk by and they will say things to you, good ori bad, butv it has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them and their perspective. So you play and have fun. Dont worry about that. Okay. So when i grew up, i. Encountered things. I knew i was okay. A f but moving ahead, a few years ago i met nelson mandela. We had a brief conversation. And i asked him how he could be such a good person of all the f things that he had encountered. W and he said, if i had reacted the way they predicted that i would act, then they were righti but he said, i am a mandela andi thats wherelo i get my philosoy from is that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. And so the only way that humans can evolve is they have to care about each other. That was evident throughout a number of your chapters in your book. Leartti me ask you ask you t. Jim, in particular, i was looking at a book entitled the 100 most important people in t American Sports and quite fittingly Billy Jean King is on the cover. There was a statement that you made early on in one of your earliest books where you stated had never been a time when you h were not conscious of the civild rights movement. I was veryee conscious of the Civil Rights Movement and very active in what i called the s movement for dignity equality o and justice. It superseded my interest in sports. Sports gave me an opportunity to help the cause. And that is what i dedicated myself to doing. Theights m now, i know that you supported c the Civil Rights Movement. But you were ahead of the Civil Rights Movement in terms of youd focus on Economic Development. What led you to move beyond blk simple desegregation to Economic Development, to starting the ees black economic union, setting ua professional athletes talking to small black Small Business ah people in georgia, alabama, tennessee . What led i you to that sense th that was the direction things had to go into . Well, it was understanding that people had to get off of their butts. Regardless of what the to condition, use intelligence and labor as they could to deliver a themselves. We couldntny depend on a government or Corporate America or anyone else. So i was always a person that ib advocated Economic Development because america is a capitalisa. While you were down there, you talked to young people about thh necessity of completing school, becoming economically viable and g ry[8 oe6]l[d34 because im convinced that im the best person for the job. ry [8 oe6]l[d34 and i expected all of the people i surround myself to do the same . Coll jim and i have known each other since college. And he used to tell me all the time that he was a better basketball player than i was anyway. Aid, averaged 38 points a game. And i said, jim, no. [ laughter ] js j8pd8o uninvolvement, apathy, a lack of concern about the broader issues that you speak of now . g ry[8 oe6]l34 jackies favorite athletes. One and i took that to say jackie as had done a tremendous thing for 8pd8o i did a pretty good job. I think you did. 11 nba championships. Lpugww ry[8 oe6]l[d34 page or josh gibson because thet were great, h great baseball ece players. But he chose jackie because he knew jackie had the3 xrlpugww g ry [8 oe6l[d34 to slavery n and the under grou railroad. You mru take notice of these things to be able to live in properly, i feel. Riett the under Ground Railroad represented harriet tubman. Basia she was given tremendous praise for being that pioneer who verlo basically lived her life to free the slaveske. Hou what iss also overlooked9 f[lns keeping the books. And so in looking at where we g ry[8 oe6]l[d34 when you look a t the fact that n. The nba is onequarter foreign born, we are losing spots there. S js j8pd8o g ry[8 oe6]l[d34 the allstar game, the 20 top players in the league got together and struck an allstar game to form the union. The owners said, no way. We are not going to do that. So we said, okay. There will be no allstar game. A Abc Television said that if you want us to televise, you get d o your players on the floor. Do they said, lets talk to them. L so tle sahey9 f[39s js j8pd8o [ applause ] g ry[8 oe6]l[d34 scholarship can get a college education. So we have to reemphasize education and the value of it. Ce because thats going to really n be the ingredient thats going o to make the change. S its not going to be a strugglea between the sncaa and the union and all that. Thats strictly money. Yeah. As we know with these players today that we have,9s js j8pd8i