Redskins Shameful Past and Present

Having grown up in DC I was immersed in all things Redskins from the time I could walk. As a child I wasn't too crazy about George Allen and Billy Kilmer but I did like Sonny Jurgensen. When the Redskins led by Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to play in the Superbowl, routed Denver 42-10 in Super Bowl XXII it was the sweetest game I had ever seen.

What many people don't know is that had it been up to the guy who owned the Redskins until his death in 1969, Doug Williams wouldn't have been allowed to play on the team. (thx KB)

From Sports Illustrated...

In 1937, angered by meager support from fans and the press, Marshall had moved the Redskins from Boston to his hometown, D.C. The nation's capital was segregated then, and Marshall was determined to keep his team as white [that way]. He ordered the Redskins Band to play Dixie before games and eventually changed a line in Hail to the Redskins, the team's fight song, from "fight for old D.C." to "fight for old Dixie."

On March 24, 1961 Interior Secretary Stewart Udall notified Marshall that the new D.C. Stadium, for which Marshall had just signed a 30-year lease, was being built with public funds in Anacostia Park and therefore was part of the Capitol Parks system, which fell under Udall's jurisdiction. To play in the stadium, Udall declared, the Redskins would have to integrate.

Marshall reacted as defiantly as ever. "I didn't know the government had the right to tell a showman how to cast the play," he said. American Nazi Party members demonstrated in D.C. with placards reading KEEP REDSKINS WHITE. Marshall finally relented and integrated the Redskins 14 years after the NFL integrated.

Marshall died in 1969 after six years in a vegetative state. In his will he left $6 million for the health, education and welfare of children in greater D.C., with the proviso that none of it be spent "for any purpose which supports or employs the principle of racial integration in any form."

Even though Marshall is long gone, the Redskins racist tradition lives on as it continues to refuse to change its racist name to something that's not offensive to Native Americans.