Keyshawn Johnson’s historical past lesson started with a query. In 2020, Bob Glauber, a Newsday reporter, wished to put in writing a guide about Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, whose signings to the Los Angeles Rams in 1946 broke an efficient ban on Black gamers within the N.F.L.
Glauber figured he would ask Johnson, who had been an outspoken member of the Jets within the late 90s when Glauber lined the staff, about them. Johnson, like each gamers, is a Los Angeles native, although he performed faculty soccer at U.S.C. lengthy after Washington and Strode have been standouts on the identical 1939 U.C.L.A. staff as Jackie Robinson.
But Johnson mentioned he had no thought of their significance as two of the 4 Black gamers to interrupt the N.F.L.’s shade barrier. He didn’t even know that N.F.L. house owners had struck a gents’s settlement to not signal Black gamers that lasted from 1934 to 1946. The ban, Johnson discovered, was solely damaged after businessmen and journalists in Los Angeles pressured the Rams into signing Washington and Strode in 1946. Invoice Willis and Marion Motley joined the Cleveland Browns the identical yr.
Johnson’s lack of information was an indication of how little the N.F.L. had performed to rejoice the gamers. However that can change on Saturday, when the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame will give its Pioneer Award to the gamers’ households at its annual enshrinement ceremony.
It could not have occurred with out Johnson and Glauber, who lobbied the Corridor for the honour and wrote “The Forgotten First: Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley, Invoice Willis and the Breaking of the N.F.L. Colour Barrier,” which was launched in 2021.
In a telephone interview, Johnson and Glauber spoke about why the historical past of the so-called Forgotten 4 has gone largely unrecognized, the consequences of the N.F.L.’s racist previous and the impression of giving the 4 pioneering gamers their due.
This interview has been frivolously edited for readability and condensed.
Keyshawn, you wrote that you simply didn’t find out about Washington or Stroud although you performed faculty soccer in the identical Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that they did once they attended U.C.L.A.
KEYSHAWN JOHNSON , when you concentrate on it rising up, whenever you speak about African American communities or Black colleges, there’s solely 4 Black folks talked about in historical past: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman. I imply, it’s fairly fundamental. Jackie Robinson in sports activities. Jesse Owens in sports activities and a bit little bit of Arthur Ashe sprinkled in. There’s no actual deep dive into the historical past. And once we get to varsity, it’s rinse and repeat another time. They’re going to show us all about white historical past.
So when Bob introduced this to my consideration, it piqued my curiosity as a result of it was in my very own yard, inside blocks of the place I grew up. I had no information about it as a result of it simply wasn’t talked about. There’s a monument on the Coliseum of Kenny Washington. However I don’t know if it’s up there on the Rose Bowl. I simply don’t ever bear in mind seeing it, and I am going to plenty of video games there.
One of the vital compelling sections of the guide was the dialogue of the implicit ban on signing Black gamers. You level to George Preston Marshall, the segregationist proprietor of the Washington franchise, as having led the ban, however you word that the opposite house owners went together with him.
JOHNSON It by no means occurs with only one man. You’ll be able to’t name all people a racist, however whenever you tolerate and also you ignore and also you flip your head the opposite manner, you’re simply as culpable. You’re simply as a lot at fault as those who initiated it. That’s the best way it’s in skilled sports activities and in politics at this time. Similar stuff, completely different years.
For many years, Main League Baseball has celebrated Jackie Robinson and confronted the ugly legacy of that league’s shade barrier. Why has it taken the N.F.L. so lengthy to do the identical?
JOHNSON On the time, baseball was the primary sport in America when Jackie Robinson was doing his deal. Whereas in soccer, you had Fritz Pollard [Pollard was the first Black head coach in pro football and won a championship as a player for the Akron Pros in 1920.] after which a stoppage at a time when faculty soccer and baseball have been greater. The league tends to get plenty of issues unsuitable after which attempt to appropriate them later, so it’s not out of the realm that it might have simply utterly flown over their heads.
BOB GLAUBER This isn’t a very righteous story, banning Black gamers. And now, Black gamers make up roughly 70 % of your complete rosters of the N.F.L. The league didn’t cowl itself in glory with this story.
That mentioned, once we went to the league and type of seemed for evaluation and opinion, beginning with Roger Goodell, he owned it. He mentioned: “That story is true, and we are able to’t change that and we’ve to simply accept it.”
The 4 gamers, they’d diverging careers: Some lasted longer. Some lasted, truly, fairly briefly. Do any of their private tales resonate louder with you, Keyshawn?
JOHNSON It’s simply extra about how they have been handled by a few of their teammates, each good and dangerous. These tales at all times keep on with me. How folks like George Preston Marshall vindictively handled folks, but was nonetheless capable of personal a staff and need Black gamers to serve him. To me, it’s thoughts boggling. On the similar time, these gamers to nonetheless struggle by means of it and never let it personal them or take their spirits away for doing stuff that they need to do, which was play skilled sports activities. Motley bought principally blackballed, couldn’t play or coach within the Nationwide Soccer League, however he continued to struggle by means of it. That perseverance, that psychological toughness is what it’s all about to me.
Race stays a central stress within the N.F.L. with the Brian Flores go well with that alleged he was discriminated in opposition to in hiring, racial bias within the concussions settlement and criticism that there are few staff house owners of shade. So will these 4 gamers being honored on the Corridor of Fame change the dynamic?
GLAUBER This simply looks like an emotional conclusion to their story as a result of the Corridor of Fame is honoring them. However to me, it’s actually the start of extra consciousness of who they have been, what they did and why they have been so necessary as a result of they don’t seem to be family names like Jackie Robinson. I don’t know in the event that they ever can be. However they need to be.