Stories from the Eastside - Blocking and Tackling While Black - Sports in the Sixties
Blocking and Tackling While Black - Sports in The Sixties
Blocking and Tackling While Black - Sports in The Sixties
In 1961 I was accepted to play football at San Jose State. This was my first time living away from home, far from my Black, Eastside community in Riverside where everyone knew each other. The team was mostly made up of white players. At Only 5'10", I was one of the smaller players. But let's just say I was remarkably strong and I played with a chip on my shoulder. After all, it was the sixties.
The Civil Rights Movement was just beginning to expand across the United States and I was still a member of the Junior NAACP. San Jose players did not welcome me with open arms. My career at San Jose State ended abruptly. At one memorable practice, one of my coaches was holding a punching bag. He was ragging on me about how soft I was. With one explosive punch I hit the bag with the intent of ending racism. Instead I knocked the coach on his butt.
I came back to Riverside Community College where, after a great season I was given honorary mention as an All American Player. Little did I know, there was a San Jose State coach who was impressed with my play. He made contact with the coaches at San Diego State to suggest they give me a tryout. To my surprise I got recruited to play for three future NFL Hall of Fame coaches. Don "Air" Coryell who went on to coach the San Diego Chargers was head coach. John Madden of Oakland Raiders fame was the defensive coach. Joe Gibbs of Washington Redskin Fame was a co-captain of the offensive team. And eventually I earned the role of co-captain of the defensive team.
In the early sixties, San Diego was just beginning to confront issues of racism. Up until 1946 there was an official San Diego Ku Klux Klan chartered group regularly burning crosses on black family front lawns. Although the Klan was disbanded, confederate flags were frequently displayed in the back windows of pickup trucks. Even though interracial marriage was legalized in California in 1948 it was not until 1967 that it was legal throughout the country. Shirley, my white wife, Richie, my mixed race kid and me were turned away from several apartment rentals near the college.
"Why don't you go to the Negro side of town," was the message I received from many landlords. Eventually we found housing too many miles away from campus. I bought a gun and conducted target practice in my backyard so that the local klansman would realize that I was armed and dangerous.
Once I became co-captain, the coaches looked to me to help attract additional talented black players. There was a receiver at Riverside Community College Madden wanted me to recruit. When he arrived for a visit I took him on a tour. I thought the tour went well. But the word was that something had gone wrong.
The next day I was ordered into the coaches office.
"What did you do Jones, this guy is no longer excited about joining our team!" screamed Madden.
"Well, I just told him the truth. If he wanted to join a great football organization, this was the place. But if he was looking for a team where they looked out for a black man, for his housing, his social life, his academics, I would look somewhere else."
"What do you mean?" the coaches asked.
"Do you know how many black students there are in the college dorms? Why don't you check it out."
There were no black students in the dorms. However, the following year after we organized the first SDSU Black Student Union, there were Blacks living in the dorms.
The Sixties San Diego Black Activists - Provided by Alyce Smith Cooper
During this time, many local black leaders were making progress in demanding equal representation in schools, business and community organizations.
Pricilla Lane Valentine Jones a social worker and community advocate and SDSU graduate who was married to Napoleon Alvin Jones a lawyer who became a State Supreme Court Judge. My husband James Vernon Cooper, US Marine Korean Veteran and Black Panther Party member, Napoleon and Pricilla Valentine Jones were all San Diego civil rights activist. This group assisted the SDSU black students Neil Pettis and Buddy Jones, helping them raise money and submit the charter for the first SDSU Black Student Union.
Buddy: San Diego in the sixties became a critical turning point in my life. Many of my new black friends were joining political and militant organizations. We were no longer negro. We were Black and Beautiful. With fists high, Black Power was our salute. Although football had given me a great platform to vent my frustration with racism, it did not end the discrimination.
Two things happened that set my life on a new course. During the summer of 1962, still a member of the NAACP, I was invited to attend a Civil Rights Retreat at Asilomar. When invited to take a seat at the table, I was invited to sit with Martin Luther King, Jr., Corretta Scott King and Joan Baez. I was honored. But, at the time probably not as amazed as I am today. I do know that their warmth, their intelligence and their steely determination had an immeasurable impact on that angry young black man. What I realize today is that they were just at the beginning of their meteoric rise to international fame.
After dinner we gathered to listen to music. Now, I loved playing drums. Joan was asked to sing and I was asked to join her. I did not know Ms Baez but she seemed to be a nice enough white lady and had a decent voice.
Before I left, Joan's manager approached me. Joan was playing a few gigs in the S.F. Bay area and wanted to know if I would like to join her. I politely declined because I had to attend preseason football practice.
The second exposure happened at a local self-help therapeutic program. I had already been working with delinquent kids at a part time job. A friend introduced me to this therapeutic group. They had their own clubhouse where they invited the public to visit every Saturday night. Shirley and I went down for a visit. I had never seen so many black, white, hispanic people hanging out in one place. They were all having a good time talking, eating donated pastries and drinking coffee. At each meeting they made a few announcements and introduced a recovering addict who was celebrating his or her first year of clean man days.
Eventually I ended up volunteering to help take care of the recovering addicts. Nobody cared about color. They were too busy kicking a bad habit and learning how to get up and go to work every day.
I never used drugs. But I had worked hard all of my life. From fixing carburetors in my dad's car repair shop at the age of seven, wrestling with what I did not know was dyslexia to get my academics done, to excelling at sports, I always worked hard. I think the managers at this therapeutic program recognized my work ethic. Once again I was recruited to be a role model.
The challenge: Take up arms with the angry black political action organizers or join arms with this interracial self-help therapeutic community. Looking back I suspect my interracial family made it easy to pick the latter. But that is just the beginning of the story.
A story from the life of Buddy Jones
Written by Andre James
October 14, 2022
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