WRITTEN OUT OF HISTORY: Research exposed Thomas Jefferson; sports media failures promote Bear Bryant fairytales
PHOTO: The brand of research that confirmed Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children is missing from exposing Bear Bryant fairytales.
Buy me a coffee to support my research to tell untold college football integration untold stories.
Thomas Shanahan | @Thomas-Shanahan-23
Order link:
Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, The Integration of College Football 3rd Ed – August Publications
***
By TOM SHANAHAN
Straightening out history is an endless task.
Howell Raines told me that while writing his book, “SILENT CALVARY: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta – And Then Got Written Out of History.”
My endless task is writing, “how 1960s pioneers of college football integration blazed trails and then got written out of history” by fairytales surrounding the 1970 USC-Alabama game and Alabama coach Bear Bryant.
I tell stories of how roads were cleared to make the 1970 USC-Alabama game possible in two books, “RAYE OF LIGHT” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO,” and on my website, TomShanahan.Report. The lost history fault lies with sports media’s custom of avoiding race in the 1960s and continues with modern media regurgitating unvetted tales.
The Netflix series “THOMAS JEFFERSON” heartened me to contrast Bryant folklore with recent research confirming Jefferson history fathered slave Sally Hemings’ children. The common denominator is telling — or not telling — the stories of African Americans.
Some negligent 1960s sportswriters were institutionally lazy. Some complied with the belief writing about Black athletes would alienate subscribers and advertisers. But some were fine with Jim Crow just as the Washington Post’s great Shirley Povich said silent writers agreed with Major League Baseball’s color line.
The consequence resulted in blank pages. Bryant myths were backed in to fill the void. The false narrative claims one football game was enough to end Jim Crow. That’s like saying World War II ended on D-Day when Tom Hanks made it ashore at Normandy.
Part VI of Netfilx’s film was based on Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “THE HEMINGS OF MONTICELLO.” Algorithms pushed the series onto my history radar.
Gordon-Reed’s research, confirmed by DNA testing, was bolstered by comments in the film from honored historians Niya Bates and Jon Meacham. They explained Gordon-Reed’s work differed by including accounts from Madison Hemings, who said Jefferson was his father, and Israel Gillette Jefferson, who said Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children.
Gordon-Reed says this in the Netflix film:
“So, the combination of things I’ve done, and the DNA change the way people saw things. Why is this important? Because of what it says about the way people write about history and who is a credible witness and whose story matters. The suggestion that the founding era is the era of White people and not the era of lots of different people.”
As I listened, I thought, “I can take those quotes and rewrite them to apply them to Bryant myths with changes noted in boldface.
My rewrite of Gordon-Reed quote:
“So, the combination of things I’ve done, and the DNA taken from interviews about Mel West, Norris Stevenson, Johnny Roland, Darryl Hill, Bob Grant, Butch Henry, Warren McVea, Jerry LeVias, Rufus Cormier, Nat Northington, Greg Page, Wilbur Hackett, Houston Hogg, Lester McClain, Jackie Walker, James Owens and other pioneers change the way people saw things. Why is this important? Because of what it says about the way people write about history and who is a credible witness and whose story matters. The suggestion is football in the South in the 1960s is the era of White people and not the era of lots of different people.”
Here is more dialogue from a four-minute stretch at the end of Part VI followed by my rewrites.
Niya Bates, Netflix:
“… historians have long discounted the oral histories of African Americans by saying they’re less valid than other types of historical information, things like diaries and handwritten records. The key here being the people who are literate are able to produce better histories than those who are not. So, the story that Jefferson’s white family weaves become the main narrative. These are the ways they’ve protected his legacy for 200 years.”
My rewrite of Bates quote:
“… historians have long discounted the oral histories of African Americans by saying they’re less valid than other types of historical information, things like diaries and handwritten records. The key here being Bryant’s sycophants are able to produce better histories than Black players. So, the fairytale Bryant’s White apologists weave becomes the main narrative. These are the ways they’ve protected Bryant’s legacy for the 30-plus years since the myth was made up two decades after the game was played.”
Jon Meacham, Netlix:
“Suddenly, centuries of lies and wishful thinking are gone. And what stands is the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is what America is. Which is this remarkable combination of lies and reality and contradictions and hope and fear. All of which Jefferson was. If we want to understand who we’ve been, and who we are and who we want to be, it begins with an honest conversation about Thomas Jefferson.”
My rewrite of Jon Meacham quote:
“Suddenly, decades of lies and wishful thinking are gone. And what stands is the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is what America is. Which is this remarkable combination of lies and reality and contradictions and hope and fear. All of which Bryant and Jim Crow football were. If we want to understand who we’ve been, and who we are and who we want to be, it begins with an honest conversation about Bear Bryant.”
Niya Bates, Netflix:
“We learned about the Hemings through Madison Hemings and Israel Gillette Hemings, who confirmed through their own experiences they were there — they were witnesses to it. And yet historians for decades dismissed the first-hand accounts from the enslaved community. But the DNA study and Annette Gordon- Reed shows us these enslaved families mattered. It’s important to resist the idea that researching slavery is difficult or impossible or too challenging a project to undertake. The more we think through ways we can elevate the stories and preserve these histories, the more we can bring some of this history out the shadows.”
My Niya Bates rewrite:
“We learned about 1960s progress in the South through Black players who confirmed through their own experiences they were there — they were witnesses to it. And yet historians for decades dismissed the first-hand accounts from the Black players. But the DNA of their interviews shows us these Black players mattered. It’s important to resist the idea that researching 1960s college football integration is difficult or impossible or too challenging a project to undertake. The more we think through ways we can elevate the stories and preserve these histories, the more we can bring some of this history out the shadows.”
***
Please, Netflix (or another network), bring out of the shadows true stories explaining college football integration.
They include Mel West, Norris Stevens, Johnny Roland, Darryl Hill, Bob Grant, Butch Henry, Warren McVea, Jerry LeVias, Rufus Cormier, Nat Northington, Greg Page, Wilbur Hackett, Houston Hogg, Lester McClain, Jackie Walker, James Owens, Duffy Daugherty’s 1960s Michigan State rosters that were college football’s first fully integrated rosters and others denied their proper place in history.
If the reader can’t identify the above names by their college, that’s my point. Their stories matter but there are no films about the true pioneers – or algorithms to push them onto your radar.
HBO, Showtime and ESPN films only produce and promote Bryant fairytales.
***
Many college football integration milestone anniversaries were pushed into the shadows or won’t be fully appreciated.
A good example of the latter is this year’s 60th anniversary of the 1966 Game of the Century matching Notre Dame and Michigan State.
Past anniversary stories debated the controversial 10-10 tie, but they missed the fact of the half-dozen showdowns labeled a “Game of the Century,” the first with Black players was Notre Dame-Michigan State. The Spartans lined up 20 to the Irish’s one.
On my website, TomShanahan.Report, I have a video podcast series that explains Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty was the first to ignore college football’s unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so.
The 1966 Game of the Century witnessed by a record TV audience of 33 million was a tipping point coupled with the Civil Rights movements. Coaches followed Daugherty’s example from the late 1960s forward.
My Gordon-Reed-like research gemstones were Daugherty setting new standards when he ignored unwritten quotas limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so. Other schools began recruiting more Black players in the late 1960s.
The media falling for the 1970 USC-Alabama myth added the fallacy of USC as a model integration program. USC, located in populous and diverse Los Angeles, numbered only five Black players on its 1962 national title team and only seven on its 1967 national championship roster.
By 1970, the Trojans were still shedding the quota limit years with only four Black starters against Alabama. Of the 18 Black players on the 1970 roster, 11 were transfers in the 1969 and 1970 recruiting classes – nine from junior colleges and two from four-year schools.
These facts are absent from HBO, Showtime, ESPN, The Athletic and The Atlantic. Their stories misleadingly credit Bryant and USC as leaders.
To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, Bear Bryant myths have a thousand fathers, but Duffy Daugherty’s true story is an orphan.
If you don’t want to believe me, here’s what Lane Demas, an author of books on sports and integration and a Ph.D professor at Central Michigan University, says about the 1970 USC-Alabama myth.
“Alabama football integrated because an organized, sustained movement of Black Americans nationwide forced it to, against its will. That’s the only answer that makes sense if you study the broader historical context.
“The USC-Alabama story is in a long line of white myths that serve to deny Black people their agency in terms of changing America. Focusing on figures like Branch Rickey and Bear Bryant creates a narrative in which it is ultimately White people who make cautious, thoughtful, calculating decisions to create and integrate their own teams. They become the agents of change, not Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or thousands who struggled in the streets.”
***
I’ve got a head start along with a distinguished documentary team on such a true film about college football integration. Take a look:
Game Changers Sizzle 2025 | Videos & Movies on Vimeo
-30-
— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama that earned first place for Enterprise from the Football Writers Association of American.
— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.
— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”
***
PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books
— RAYE OF LIGHT,
Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, The Integration of College Football 3rd Ed – August Publications
or on Amazon.
— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.
PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books
— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.
— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP. Order here:
How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map by Tom Shanahan, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
Amazon.com: How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map eBook : Shanahan, Tom: Kindle Store
