Lecture (Oct 15): “Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights,”

Samuel G. Freedman, Columbia University, Avery Research Center, McKinley Washington Auditorium, 6:00 pm.

Freedman discusses his new publication, Breaking the Line, which brings to life the historic saga of the battle for the 1967 black college championship, culminating in a riveting, excruciatingly close contest. Freedman traces the rise of two legendary African American coaches, Eddie Robinson and Jake Gaither, and two African American quarterbacks, James Harris and Ken Riley. Together with their teammates they helped compel the segregated colleges of the South to integrate their teams and redefined who could play quarterback in the NFL, who could be a head coach, whobreaking_the_line could run a franchise as general manager.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *