To Live and Play in Dixie: Pro Football's Entry into the Jim Crow South

While the story of the reintegration of professional football in 1946 after World War II is a topic that has been covered, there is a little-known aspect of this integration that has not been fully explored.

After World War II and up until the mid- to late 1960s, professional football teams scheduled numerous preseason games in the South. Once African American players started dotting the rosters of these teams, they had to face Jim Crow conditions. Early on, black players were barred from pl...