Are you ready for some Football? Thanksgiving Day Football Traditions
The Black community has a rich history of Thanksgiving traditions and one of them includes the presence of American Football as central to the day’s festivities. Morrie Turner (1923-2014), a cartoonist who created “Wee Pals” explains, “Yes, Christmas was a big thing with my family, a huge thing and… Thanksgiving… We just spent the day together… I remember we'd be out in the street playing football. There was no traffic, you know, and you could play football and the kids in the whole neighborhood play. And stick ball and football… at Thanksgiving time, it was football. So then you played until time to eat, and you scarfed and I mean you got older and older… even maybe you would drink, yeah.”[1] Al-Tony Gilmore (1946-), the former director of the University of Maryland, College Park Afro-American Studies Program, furthers: “But we played football in sandlots. Now, I can go to Spartanburg right now. I'm going to Spartanburg, in fact, Wednesday morning for Thanksgiving. When I get there Wednesday morning, I'm going to see my friends. And I'm going to say, ‘Where's the game?’ They're going to say, ‘Oh, Tony, you know they don't play the game anymore.’ Because… that was the game where you made your reputation as to whether you were going to be a football player. They played it every Thanksgiving from, since I was down to here [pointing downward] until I left. It was played on the black side of town on Thompson Street. And it was called ‘The nigger bowl.’… Yes sir, buddy. If you could survive playing in the nigger bowl, going to Carver [High School] was a piece of cake. That's what we called it… Veterans, grown men. Guys who dropped out of school who generally were the better athletes… You had to compete with those guys, and guys who had finished high school. And you picked teams, and you hoped that you could get picked by one of those teams. That was a brutal kind of football--no helmets, no pads… Tackle, absolutely. No such thing as touch football... real football. I couldn't count the legs, the arms, the injuries, that were sustained during those games. I think… they would even have an ambulance just sitting there, just waiting, man. Well, I never was a star in the ‘nigger bowl,’ I never was. But I grew up admiring the guys. I never had the size, at that point in time. When I got to high school, I went out for quarterback in the tenth grade. And I was small, but I did make the team. The team was one of the best teams in the state… But I could never even get picked to play on a team in that bowl over there on Thompson Street.”[2]
Former NFL Football Player Gale Sayers (1943-), similarly shared, “A lot of black athletes in Omaha, Nebraska… And, you know, every year this is going… But we would always play the high school kids in a--we called it a turkey bowl, that was for Thanksgiving. And we called--for Christmas we had a cold bowl. And we would go out there, us, you know, at eleven, twelve, and thirteen, you know, playing high school kids. And I think that's what made me a good athlete, and made the people that I played with good athletes. Because we would always play kids, you know, three or four years older than we were. And we would beat them, because we were that good.”[3] Charles W. Cherry II (1956-), publisher of the ‘Florida Courier,’ elaborates: “You had the Soul Bowl or the Turkey Bowl which is kids would get out on a field… on a Sunday or on a Thanksgiving… you got a football that you're playing out there and… there's no organization, there's no parents. It's just the kids… from the neighborhood and we're gonna go out here and it's gonna be twenty or thirty of us and we're gonna pick a team and then you know you gonna play and then if your team loses you, you know, you get off the field… so kids organize themselves. And again that just doesn't happen anymore. And the parents could--I mean it's not like they didn't care but it's like you know my folks [Julia Troutman Cherry and Charles Cherry, Sr.] like, ‘Who the hell is gonna snatch you? Nobody wanna feed you. You know I'm not worried about you getting kidnapped… or abused or anything like that. You know if they got to feed you they gonna bring you back home.’ So… I mean,... so as I even prepare for this, we've lost a lot. I mean a lot from the perspective… of our culture and the things… that we grew up with… as kids and you know if you are middle class or upper middle class black person, you living in a gated community and you know you may have a GPS tag on your kids and you know you gotta make a play date and all this kind of foolishness, I mean it's just like I'm sort of like jeez… is this what we've come to?”[4]
Larry Brown (1947-), the president of Ottawa Ford-Lincoln-Mercury and Kia in Ottawa, Illinois, mentions: “Right, right the J.L. Hudson Parade that, that was huge… and my mother [Mattie Lewis Brown] would cook all the food and make pies… remember as childhood experience is around Christmas and Thanksgiving my mother would just seemed like she cooked for days in preparation for this holiday. I mean she would cook sweet potato pies and pound cakes, lemon meringue pies, upside down pineapple cakes and it was just, just a lot of food. Obviously you know the turkey and all the trimmings that come with that and that's something that I really looked forward to. 'Cause you know that there's as going to be some real good eating… during the holiday period. And she would just start cooking seemed like a week in advance, to have this big meal. So Thanksgiving without a doubt was big huge day for us… Yes right 'cause the parade would go down Woodward Avenue and then the Lions [Detroit Lions] would play and I would always remember Lions would normally always win on Thanksgiving Day. And during at the time they would always play the Green Bay Packers, so it was always the Lions and the Green Bay… Packers. And then as the year's progress they changed opponents but I grew up… when it was the Lions always playing the Packers on Thanksgiving Day.”[5] Reverend Jesse L. Jackson (1941-), a Civil Rights leader and minister, shares in connection with his maternal grandmother’s sacrifices: “She gave us the sense that we mattered. And she was very sensitive to the odds of white race supremacy, you know. Her point was you'll outlive hate. Don't get caught up in that stuff, and that… if you get this education and get that stuff in your head, they can't hold you down. You can make it somehow, some way. And she kept dropping these little bits in. And I think, what I think about so often is the sacrifices she made that were not so subtle. On Thanksgiving Day, we never had a turkey at Thanksgiving Day. We couldn't afford a turkey. We'd often have a hen. But she had to go to work early to cook the white people's food on Thanksgiving Day, while we played football at the foot of the hill, not with a real football, but with a can wrapped in a rag, which… all the neighborhood kids played at the bottom of the hill. It really was a parking lot for the stadium. Often our parents would go to work in the surrounding areas; and they would overcook, and once the white people had their dinner, their turkey and their dressing, they would give them what was left. Often what was left was the overcooked. So we usually had Thanksgiving around five o'clock in the afternoon as opposed to two o’ clock because of their work schedules. Just the sheer ingenuity of that, you know; and teaching us how to eat properly, you know, knife and spoon on the right and fork on the left, preparing white people's tables, teaching manners. At times I would see her go to work with runs in her stockings, not because she didn't know how to dress. She could handle being looked at that way. But my brother and I, she didn't want us to have mismatched socks. We may get laughed at and drop out of school. So her strength manifested itself in those kinds of ways, the sense of selfless sacrifice.”[6] Allie B. Latimer (1928-), the founder of the Federally Employed Women organization, adds regarding her grandmother: “So… she had lots and lots of dinner. We lived in a fairly large house so she always had, somebody was always there. She lived near the college so she would, before we came… from Pennsylvania she had boys that went to school that would board with her, room and board and as many people did… she only took boys because… girls had to cook so she didn't want them in the kitchen and she would provide breakfast and dinner for the boys. And many of them graduated and went on and they would have a big rival football game at thanksgiving time between Tuskegee [Institute] and Alabama State [University]. That was a big thing. So all of the alumni would come back and all of these boys… many of them were principals of schools and things would come back… and stay with my grandmother. And many of them would just come in, let her know she was there and put their bags down and then they'd be off. But they would come back for Thanksgiving dinner. And I can remember my grandmother having as many as twenty six one time for Thanksgiving dinner.”[7]
Carol L. Adams (1944-), who was the secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services, shares: “And see, I went to all the games all my life, and everything. It's the kind of place where the black ballgames... the whole town went to. When I was coming up, the so-called colored schools were part of a national Negro League. And they would go... I can remember when Central won the nationals. You know, and they would play all around. I have programs from football when we'd have our Thanksgiving Football Classic. We played Wendell Phillips [High School] from Chicago [Illinois]. We played Pearl High School from Nashville [Tennessee]. We played somewhere else, from Memphis [Tennessee] and so forth. The black high schools had a circuit that would remind you of colleges. Because they were often the only school in the town, and they couldn't play anyone else.”[8]
Faye Beverly Bryant (1937-2020), the twenty-first international President of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., highlights the historic Yates-Wheatly football rivalry: “When we were in high school, we played each other in sports. And Wheatley and Yates played every Thanksgiving. It was just like a college or a Super Bowl in high school football, and there would be thousands of folks at the game. And if you lost that game, you just cried, oh, goodness, that was the hurt for you to lose to Yates. But it was… a highlight during that time. Those were some of the things we had during, you know, when schools were really all black. You created and you had opportunities. As you begin to integrate, you lost some of that. That was a given in Houston that every Thanksgiving, everybody from Third Ward and Fifth Ward were going to be at the stadium for the football game. And each school presented Miss Yates and Miss Wheatley and, you know, they did that, and they crowned them during that game. And it was fun… Now, I always, not only lived in Third Ward near Yates, but I went to church [Wesley Chapel A.M.E. Church] in Third Ward with all the Yates people, so I knew as many people at Yates as I knew at Wheatley.”[9] The Honorable Andrew L. Jefferson, Jr. (1934-2008), who was the president of the Nu Boule’ chapter of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, notably adds, “You know, one of the greatest football matchups of all time was the Yates, Wheatley football game on Thanksgiving Day. And, we don't do it anymore, but we did for years and you'd dress up in your absolute best and you went to… watch the football game between Yates and Wheatley. I mean and it was just diehard. I mean you would fight over it or, you know, over in behalf of your team. It was just great stuff.”[10] Lawyer U. Lawrence Boze (1949-), who founded U. Lawrence Bozé and Associates, furthers, “Oh, absolutely, and Yates, Jack Yates [High School, Houston, Texas]... which Debbie Allen went to and then Phillis Wheatley because I played in the last--what they called the last Thanksgiving game 'cause… that was a traditional Thanksgiving Day, it was Wheatley versus Yates in Jeppesen Stadium [Houston, Texas] and there would be 30,000 to 40,000 African Americans out there for the game. And it was still--you know, like I say, it was still part of segregation, but that was, that was a big event and I played in the last Thanksgiving game as playing football.”[11] John W. Peavy Jr. (1942-), who served as justice of the peace from 1974 to 1977, and as district judge from 1977 to 1994 in Houston, Texas, contextualizes: “…traditionally in Houston every Thanksgiving there would be a Wheatley-Yates game. It would be the battle of who had the best football team in addition to who had the best football team it would also be who put on the best halftime show… One of the things I want to say is that when I was at Wheatley I was in the ROTC [Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps] and I was a colonel in the ROTC but more importantly I was a part of the drill team and we would perform back there then at the Wheatley--Yates games. But, you know, and, it was always spectacular… No doubt about it, no doubt--yes the bands--they had the Wheatley marching band, the Yates marching band, they had band instructors who did exuberance, who had them doing… Fast pace and they had the drum majorettes and it was just unbelievable. I remember one year… for Yates at the halftime they brought Miss Yates in a helicopter and landed on the field and I mean it was a sight to see.”[12]
Houston History Magazine, https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/2016/12/the-turkey-day-classic-houstons-biggest-football-rivalry/
Student Ambassador Bi-Weekly Update: One main event in these last two weeks was the presentation that I gave on November 6th, 2022 at 5 pm to the Wellesley African Students Association. My demonstration consisted of presenting my customized HistoryMakers slides, and then going into the archive with the students and doing a sample search. I was able to present on the big screen TV that connected to my computer and ensure that it was an interactive presentation. Additionally, my interview with the Wellesley College Communications and Public Affairs Office for the Day of Giving, which centers my experiences as a student ambassador and my larger Wellesley Experience (my interview was condensed and part of this video: https://www.givecampus.com/schools/WellesleyCollege/wellesley-s-day-of-giving-2022). Furthermore, I was posted on the Wellesley College Instagram story and they added the link to my spotlight story about The HistoryMakers from September which gave further/new publicity to it. I have begun to really fine-tune my Black History Month Digital Archive, creating a more condensed and cohesive prompt that centers students’ spaces of “home” and thought out numerous campus organizations and departments to collaborate with. I have also continued to edit and update my Outreach Plan as I continue to receive feedback on it. For this blog, I was so excited to get to discuss the intersection of American Football and Thanksgiving Day especially given its rich history in the Black Community. My main search terms (other searches gave minimal results) were: “Thanksgiving” + “Football” which returned 55 search results and I combed through every single one of them. This is the blog post to date that I am the most proud of. School will be on vacation for Thanksgiving Break starting this Wednesday (November 23rd, 2022).
Notes:
[1] Morrie Turner (The HistoryMakers A2004.041), interviewed by Loretta Henry, April 6, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 7, Morrie Turner shares childhood memories
[2] Al-Tony Gilmore (The HistoryMakers A2003.275), interviewed by Larry Crowe, November 21, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 9, Al-Tony Gilmore describes playing football and basketball at Carver high school
[3] Gale Sayers (The HistoryMakers A2008.124), interviewed by Larry Crowe, November 5, 2008, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 11, Gale Sayers recalls his early football teammates
[4] Charles W. Cherry II (The HistoryMakers A2014.230), interviewed by Larry Crowe, September 7, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 8, Charles W. Cherry II talks about his childhood activities
[5] Allie B. Latimer (The HistoryMakers A2004.055), interviewed by Racine Tucker Hamilton, May 20, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 6, Allie Latimer recalls childhood memories
[6] Reverend Jesse L. Jackson (The HistoryMakers A2006.031), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, February 28, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 9, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson recalls his maternal grandmother’s sacrifices for her family
[7] Allie B. Latimer (The HistoryMakers A2004.055), interviewed by Racine Tucker Hamilton, May 20, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 6, Allie Latimer recalls childhood memories
[8] Carol L. Adams (The HistoryMakers A2003.066), interviewed by Larry Crowe, April 7, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 10, Carol L. Adams describes her experience at Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky, pt. 2
[9] Faye Beverly Bryant (The HistoryMakers A2008.043), interviewed by Denise Gines, March 11, 2008, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 6, Faye Beverly Bryant describes her high school rivalry with Jack Yates Senior High School
[10] The Honorable Andrew L. Jefferson, Jr. (The HistoryMakers A2007.231), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 10, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 14, The Honorable Andrew L. Jefferson, Jr. remembers his influential teachers
[11] U. Lawrence Boze (The HistoryMakers A2004.225), interviewed by Larry Crowe, November 3, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 2, U. Lawrence Boze remembers his experience at Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston, Texas
[12] The Honorable John W. Peavy, Jr. (The HistoryMakers A2016.130), interviewed by Larry Crowe, December 2, 2016, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 1, The Honorable John W. Peavy, Jr. recalls the rivalry between the black high schools in Houston, Texas
