Lucius Banks, Jr. (1 May 1886 – February 1955) was an American professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

footballer who played in the 1910s. He played in England for

Hunslet Hunslet () is an inner-city area in south Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is southeast of the city centre and has an industrial past. It is situated in the Hunslet and Riverside ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds Central parliamentar ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

in 1912 and, is thought to be the first black athlete to compete in

football; the first American to play rugby league; and, according to the historian Tony Collins, "probably only the fourth black American to play professional football of any code".

Biography

Early life

Banks was born in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in either 1885 or 1886 to Lucius Banks Sr. and Julia Webb Banks. The family moved to

Arlington, Massachusetts Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 census. History European colonists settled the Town of Arlington in 1635 as a village w ...

when he was still young. Banks served in the U.S. cavalry,Tony Collins,
Racial minorities in a marginalized sport: Race, discrimination and integration in British rugby league football
, ''Immigrants & Minorities Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora'', 17 (1998), 151-69 (p. 155), DOI: 10.1080/02619288.1998.9974933. recorded as a private in 1910 in the ''

Army and Navy Register ''Armed Forces Journal'' (''AFJ'') was a publication for American military officers and leaders in government and industry. Created in 1863 as a weekly newspaper, ''AFJ'' was published under various names by various owners in various formats for ...

''. He was stationed at

West Point, New York West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the Ame ...

from 1908 to 1912, where he excelled in both cricket and American football.

Playing career

Banks was spotted playing as a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in New York by a one-time member of

's management committee, and the club bought him out of the army and brought him to the UK, apparently partly because the club thought an exotic player would boost revenue. The strategy seems to have worked, as 'his presence significantly swelled the attendance at his first game'. Local news reporting on Banks's first game in England included some prominent racist coverage, with a local evening paper running the headline 'Hunslet's Coloured Coon' and the ''

Yorkshire Post ''The Yorkshire Post'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds in Yorkshire, England. It primarily covers stories from Yorkshire although its masthead carries the slogan "Yorkshire's National Newspaper". It was previously owned by ...

'' suggesting that local players should have been hired instead and commenting that "if the club wanted to sign 'coloured' players they should go to South Africa, where there are reputed to be capable goal kickers with bare feet". Banks's performance seems to have been fairly successful: playing on the wing, he scored four tries during his first four games for the club, the first of which was on 27 January 1912, against

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

. He later moved to playing as , before returning to America following his last game with the club, on 26 December 1912. More recently, however, Banks has become a celebrated figure, seen as a pioneer in what has become a long history of black rugby league players.

Later life

Following his days in England, Banks served in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and saw active service in France. In 1919, he joined the

Boston Police Department The Boston Police Department (BPD), dating back to 1854, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest municipal police department in the United States. The ...

Boston (Mass.). City Council,
Reports of proceedings
' (Boston: Municipal Print Office, 1950), p. 6. and worked as a police officer for 27 years. He was also a member of the Prince Hall Free & Accepted Masonic Lodge. He died in 1955 (when his age was listed as 68) and was survived by his wife, Maude, and son, Richard L. Banks.

References

External links

Blogpost containing photographs of BanksSearch for "Lucius Banks" at britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Lucius 1886 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American military personnel American football quarterbacks American rugby league players Boston Police Department officers Date of death missing Hunslet F.C. (1883) players English rugby league players Rugby league in Yorkshire Year of birth uncertain United States Army soldiers