University of Wyoming's Black 14

I saw this AP story 10 days ago, but forgot to post it at the time: U of Wyoming apologizes for 1969 ouster of black players.

Basically, 14 black players at the University of Wyoming told their coach in October 1969 that they wanted to wear black armbands during a game to protest the fact that they were playing Brigham Young University. Their protest was specific to BYU for two reasons: they had experienced direct racism from BYU players in previous games and the Mormon church at the time barred black people from its priesthood (and generally considered them to be second-class humans at best, I would add).

Wearing armbands seems like a pretty mild request to me; they weren't asking to boycott the game, for instance.

But get this: the coach not only didn't accede to their request: he kicked them off the team and revoked their scholarships. In the meeting,

They never got a chance to mention the armbands before [he] lit into them about coming from fatherless families and saying they would only be accepted by traditionally black colleges if they weren't at the University of Wyoming.

The only indirect justice that happened from this situation was that the Wyoming team, which had won the Sugar Bowl the year before, went on to a 1–9 season without eight of its starting players and the coach was demoted to assistant athletic director.

Now there's a piece of black history I didn't know.

At the time the article was written, University officials had just unveiled a plaque at their football stadium honoring the men. The year before, this mural was dedicated in downtown Laramie showing the players:


AP Photo/Mead Gruver