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List Of Sports Desegregation Firsts
This is a list of sports desegregation firsts. Within each section, the entries are in chronological order by achievement. Major League Baseball * 1871: Steve Bellán (1849–1932), first Latin American, depending on whether or not the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players is considered a major league * 1879: William Edward White (1860–1937), believed to be the first African American to play in the major leagues, appearing in one game on June 21, 1879. White passed as white. * 1884: Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856–1924), first openly African-American player * 1887: Jim Toy (1858–1919), another possible, disputed candidate for first Native American player * 1897: Louis Sockalexis (1871–1913), a member of the Penobscot tribe, often considered the first player of Native American ancestry * 1902: Lou Castro (1876–1941), the first Latin American, if not Bellán * 1921: Moses J. Yellow Horse (1898–1964), first full-blooded Native American player, from the P ...
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Racial Segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against humanity, crime against humanity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the wikt:spatial, spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in social hierarchy, hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation i ...
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Fritz Pollard
Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard (January 27, 1894 – May 11, 1986) was an American football player and coach. In 1921, he became the first African-American head coach in the National Football League (NFL). Pollard and Bobby Marshall were the first two African-American players in the NFL in 1920. Football pioneer Walter Camp called Pollard "one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen." Early life Pollard attended Albert G. Lane Manual Training High School in Chicago, also known as "Lane Tech," where he played football, baseball, and ran track. He then went to Brown University, majoring in chemistry. Pollard played halfback on the Brown football team, which went to the 1916 Rose Bowl.Reasons and Patrick, "Pollard Set Records as Black Football Player, Coach", ''The Plain Dealer'', Cleveland, Ohio, 1972, February 27, Section E: 5. He was the first African American football player at Brown. He became the first African American running back to be named to Walter Camp' ...
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Taffy Abel
Clarence John "Taffy" Abel (May 28, 1900 – August 1, 1964) was an American professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers and Chicago Black Hawks between 1926 and 1934. Born in 1900 in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, United States, as a Native American Ojibwe, he was forced to hide his Native American ancestry until 1939. He was a silver medalist in ice hockey at the 1924 Winter Olympics and the U.S. flagbearer for those games, being the earliest known Native American to be a US Olympic flagbearer. He was a member of two Stanley Cup championship teams. On November 16, 1926 with the New York Rangers he became the first United States-born Native American player to become an NHL regular. He is a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. Playing career Clarence "Taffy" Abel was a silver medalist on the United States in the 1924 Olympics, serving as flagbearer for the U.S. delegation. Abel scored 15 goals for the United States ...
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Earl Lloyd
Earl Francis Lloyd (April 3, 1928 – February 26, 2015) was an American professional basketball player and coach. He was the first African American player to play a game in the National Basketball Association (NBA). An All–American player at West Virginia State University, Lloyd helped lead West Virginia State to an undefeated season in 1948. As a professional, Lloyd helped lead the Syracuse Nationals to the 1955 NBA Championship. Lloyd was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003. Early life Earl Lloyd was born in Alexandria, Virginia on April 3, 1928 to Theodore Lloyd, Sr. and Daisy Lloyd. His father worked in the coal industry and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. Being a high school standout, Lloyd was named to the All-South Atlantic Conference three times and the All-State Virginia Interscholastic Conference twice. Lloyd did attend a segregated school, but gives gratitude to his family and educators for helping him through the tough times and his succes ...
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Chuck Cooper (basketball)
Charles Henry Cooper (September 29, 1926 – February 5, 1984) was an American professional basketball player. He and two others, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton and Earl Lloyd, became the first African-American players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1950. Cooper was also the first African-American to be drafted by an NBA team, as the first pick of the second round by the Boston Celtics. Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 9, 2019. Early life and college career Cooper was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Daniel and Emma Cooper. Daniel was a mailman, and Emma was a school teacher. He attended Pittsburgh's Westinghouse High School and graduated in 1944. For his senior year, he averaged more than 13 points per game and was an All-City first-team center. He then attended and played a semester of basketball for West Virginia State College (now University) before being drafted to serve in the United States Navy ...
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Nathaniel Clifton
Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton (born Clifton Nathaniel; October 13, 1922 – August 31, 1990) was an American professional basketball and baseball player. He is best known as one of the first African Americans to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Early life Born in England, Arkansas, Clifton was given the "Sweetwater" nickname as a boy because of his love of soft drinks and his easy disposition. His family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he became an outstanding basketball and baseball player at DuSable High School, graduating in 1942. He attended Xavier University of Louisiana and then served with the United States Army for three years, fighting in Europe during World War II. Early pro sports career After the war, Clifton joined the New York Rens, an all-black professional basketball team that toured throughout the United States. Noted for his large hands, which required a size 14 glove, he was invited to join the Harlem Globetrotters, for whom he played from ...
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Wat Misaka
Wataru Misaka (December 21, 1923 – November 20, 2019) was an American professional basketball player. A point guard of Japanese descent, he broke a color barrier in professional basketball by being the first non-white player and the first player of Asian descent to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA), known then as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). Misaka played college basketball for the Utah Utes and led the team to win the 1944 NCAA and 1947 NIT championships. He took a two-year hiatus between these titles to serve in the United States Army in the American occupation of Japan. Misaka subsequently played three games for the New York Knicks during the 1947–48 season. Early life Misaka was born a '' Nisei'' (second-generation Japanese American) in Ogden, Utah, to Tatsuyo and Fusaichi Misaka. He grew up poor with his two younger brothers. His family lived in the basement of his father's barber shop between a bar and a pawn shop in a bad area ...
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Johnny Grier
Johnny Grier (April 16, 1947 – March 8, 2022) was an American football official for 23 years in the National Football League (NFL) from 1981 to 2004. He began in the NFL as a field judge before becoming the first African-American referee in the history of the NFL with the start of the 1988 NFL season. Grier officiated in one Super Bowl, Super Bowl XXII in 1988, which was his last game as a field judge and the same game in which Doug Williams became the first African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl. On the field, he wore uniform number 23, which is now worn by Jerome Boger, another African-American referee. Grier attended college at the University of the District of Columbia. Grier began officiating football at age 18 and started as a unbar High Schoolfootball official in 1965, later moved on to college football in 1972, and eventually the NFL in 1981. In 1989, a year after becoming a referee, he oversaw the head coaching debut of Art Shell, the first black NFL ...
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Burl Toler
Burl Abron Toler Sr. (May 9, 1928 – August 16, 2009) was an American football official in the National Football League (NFL) for 25 seasons from 1965 NFL season, 1965 to 1989 NFL season, 1989. He served as a field judge and head linesman throughout his career and is most notable for being the first African-American official in the NFL. He also officiated in one Super Bowl, Super Bowl XIV in 1980, and wore the uniform number 37 for most of his career, except for the 1979–81 period, when officials were numbered by position. Toler wore number 18 for those three seasons. On April 21, 2008 Toler Sr. was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. Several years after his death, on May 9, 2017, the University of San Francisco renamed one of the campus's student dormitories in his honor. College career Toler was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1928. He attended the University of San Francisco and was a linebacker. Despite his physical gifts and strapping size, Toler never even playe ...
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Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters. The AP has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, including 34 for photography, since the award was established in 1917. It is also known for publishing the widely used '' AP Stylebook''. By 2016, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters, English, Spanish, and Arabic. The AP operates 248 news bureaus in 99 countries. It also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative. As part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most ...
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ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The company was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen along with his son Scott Rasmussen and Ed Eagan. ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices and auxiliary studios in Miami, New York City, Las Vegas, Seattle, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. James Pitaro currently serves as chairman of ESPN, a position he has held since March 5, 2018, following the resignation of John Skipper on December 18, 2017. While ESPN is one of the most successful sports networks, there has been criticism of ESPN. This includes accusations of biased coverage, conflict of interest, and controversies with individual broadcasters and analysts. , ESPN reaches approximately 76 million te ...
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Akron Pros
The Akron Pros were a professional football team that played in Akron, Ohio from 1908 to 1926. The team originated in 1908 as a semi-pro team named the Akron Indians, but later became Akron Pros in 1920 as the team set out to become a charter member of the American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922). Fritz Pollard, the first black head coach in the NFL, co-coached the Akron Pros in 1921. Paul Robeson played for the team in 1921 as well. He was among the earliest stars of professional football before football became segregated from 1934 to 1946. In 1926, the name was changed back to the Akron Indians, after the earlier semi-pro team. Due to financial problems, the team suspended operations in 1927 and surrendered its franchise the following year. History Origins Before 1908, several semi-pro and amateur teams dominated the Akron football scene. The most dominant of these was a team known as the Akron East Ends. The East ...
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