A researchers quest led her to The Paris News, where one reporter in the 1930s stood up to defend the rights of a Black football player, Lou Montgomery, who was
A researchers quest led her to The Paris News, where one reporter in the 1930s stood up to defend the rights of a Black football player, Lou Montgomery, who was
In this troubling time in our nationâs history, I am proud to write for a newspaper with a long history of fairness.
Out of the blue, we recently received a request from a media historian and professor at a Massachusetts university about the stand a Paris News sports editor took against a decision to deny a Black football player the chance to participate in the 1940 Cotton Bowl game between Boston College from the north and Clemson University from the south. Lou Montgomery, star halfback for Boston College, did not play in the game, and his team lost.
It was during segregation, but many northern universities played Black athletes. The year before, Texas Christian University had traveled to California to play the University of California at Los Angeles with its three Black players in its backfield, according to a December 1939 opinion piece by sports editor Bill Woodside.