Tags
African Americans, athletes, Black History Month, blacks, Bruin Nation, Bruins, history, Jackie Robinson, Kenny Washington, Ray Bartlett, Southern Branch of the University of California, The Black Bruins, Tom Bradley, UCLA, UCLA Athletics, UCLA Bruins, University of California Los Angeles, Westwood, Woody Strode
Image courtesy of forewordreviews.com
CONTINUING OUR COMMEMORATION OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH…
THIS NEEDS TO BE REQUIRED READING FOR ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO IS NOW OR HAS EVER BEEN AFFILIATED WITH UCLA AS A STUDENT, AN ALUM, A BOOSTER, A FAN, OR A COMBINATION OF THOSE FOUR DESCRIPTIONS
In other words,
If you are a member of Bruin Nation, you really need to read this book.
Otherwise you may not be considered a true member of Bruin Nation.
At least not by me, anyway.
This book called The Black Bruins, written by James W. Johnson and published in 2017,
Basically describes the people who, in a significant sense, built UCLA and put that school on the national college sports map through their athletic exploits, particularly in football.
Along with Jackie Robinson, whom everyone in the civilized world who has any interest in sports whatsoever knows full well about,
Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, who both matriciulated in Westwood in 1936 and played for coach Bill Spaulding while Bruins before Jackie arrived, are especially prominent in this book as far as how they were essentially UCLA’s first sports stars, Washington having the honor of being the first Bruin football All-American in 1939.
Those three men, in addition to Jackie’s childhood friend Ray Bartlett, who was a very good athlete in his own right, and a track and field athlete name Tom Bradley – who would go on to become Los Angeles’ first Black mayor many years later – and their heroics are described in this book at length as well as the racial struggles that they and the rest of the roughly 100 African American students at UCLA went through in that blatantly racist, Jim Crow-infested time.
Kenny Washington, UCLA’s first All-American in football. Photo courtesy of nfl-daily-football.blogspot.com
Woody Strode, another Bruin who put UCLA on the map. Photo courtesy of ucla.edu
The fact that UCLA offered Robinson, Washington, Strode, and the other black athletes spots on their campus and scholarships to play sports at all,
And the fact that Sherill Luke was elected as UCLA’s first black student body president in 1949,
Showed how progressive that school was compared to about ninety-something percent of the other colleges in the country at that time, especially in the South.
However,
The book also describes the way that blacks were not treated equally on campus nor in Westwood, saying how,
“Social gatherings (at UCLA) were pretty much off limits (to black students)…Blacks could not live in Westwood, were not welcomed at student parties, and were denied campus jobs. The Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) never had a black member, nor were there any black professors on campus…During the 1940s (and before, I’m sure) barbers in Westwood refused to cut African Americans’ hair.”
Racial slurs, refusals by certain teammates to play with blacks, and cheap shots by all-white opposing teams on the gridiron were fairly common, too.
In short, The Black Bruins does a good job at showing both sides of the experiences that African-Americans went through while at UCLA in those days.
And on top of everything else,
It gives an esssential history of the early days of what was originally known as the Southern Branch of the University of California;
How Robinson, Washington, Strode, and Bradley in particular got the ball rolling to make UCLA athletics the top program it is today, winning more national championships than any other school save for Stanford.
And how not only Robinson, but Strode and Washington became sports pioneers in integrating the NFL, debuting for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946, seven months before Jackie’s historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Which is why this book ought to be mandatory reading for every UCLA student, alum, booster, and fan.
I certainly recommend it,
And not just because of my being a UCLA alum and longtime member of Bruin Nation or in light of this being Black History Month, either.
LATER THIS MONTH:
I’ll continue this blog’s Black History Month commemorations with the story about a football player from UCLA in the 1950s whose story is quite interesting, that a friend turned me on to.
So…
WATCH FOR IT AND DON’T MISS IT!
A rare color picture of Jackie Robinson during his UCLA days. Photo courtesy of pinterest.com
SoCal Sports Chronicles 