Jerry LeVias and Martin Luther King

[Stallion]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20 ... ng-jr..ece

[dirtysouthpony]

This is good stuff. Thanks for posting Stallion.
I love seeing this historic info on SMU.

[Terry Webster]

That is a great story. It still breaks my heart to realize how Levias' own teammates treated him. Really sad.

[Bergermeister]

It still breaks my heart to realize how Levias' own teammates treated him. Really sad.

True. But there is just a little bit more to the story.

[LA_Mustang]

True. But there is just a little bit more to the story.

Care to elaborate?

[Stallion]

turns out this is the lead story on the front page of DMN this morning

[SMU 86]

It still breaks my heart to realize how Levias' own teammates treated him. Really sad.

True. But there is just a little bit more to the story.

Sounds like Berermeister is going to try to redact something or blame Levias for the type of treatment he received but maybe not. I guess he will elaborate.

[mr. pony]

Reporter says "the civil rights struggle" was "slow to come to SMU."
That's false. SMU was WAY ahead of its peers in this regard. Reporter fails to note that SMU's LeVias was the SWC's FIRST black scholarship athlete - just says he was SMU's first.
Story implies SMU was a particularly racist place. It wasn't.

[Rebel10]

Reporter says "the civil rights struggle" was "slow to come to SMU."
That's false. SMU was WAY ahead of its peers in this regard. Reporter fails to note that SMU's LeVias was the SWC's FIRST black scholarship athlete - just says he was SMU's first.
Story implies SMU was a particularly racist place. It wasn't.

How would you know? Have you spoken to any of the black students that attended during that time or is that just your opinion not have asked any of the black students. Just curious as to how you came to that conclusion.

[mrydel]

I knew some and there were not open problems in any of the classrooms or locker room while I was around. Of course there is a lot more to campus life than classroom and locker room and I am sure there were some difficult times but again I saw none. I sat and talked with Jerry Levias on a couple of occasions and he seemed fine with the world but this was his senior year and I know he suffered some indignities in his earlier time.

[ojaipony]

Good stuff. Proud of my alma mater being the first SWC school to offer the first athletic scholarship to an African-American. I always thought it was ahead of its time for a southern school. AND the banner in an old picture I saw, just a few months ago for the first time, with the very racist slur towards the Cougars much later on (from the '70s?) makes me question all of that.