Are we surprised that an old, wealthy white man once participated in one of history’s most notable racially charged events? Not at all.
Leave it to social media to unearth never-before-seen photos that some hoped were long gone. On Wednesday, historian and civil rights activist, Joshua Clark Davis, tweeted a black-and-white picture from 1957 of six Black students trying to enter North Little Rock High School. They are surrounded by white men and teens trying to prevent them from entering the school. Among the crowd of racists stands the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, who is one of the young men trying to stop the school’s desegregation from taking place. He was 14 years old at the time.
Wow, so Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was one of the bullies trying to stop his Black classmates from desegregating Central High in Little Rock in 1957. https://t.co/IZm9DuTUhM pic.twitter.com/G4o7H2G9qp
— Joshua Clark Davis (@JoshClarkDavis) November 23, 2022
According to Davis, the now 80-year-old has acknowledged it was him in the picture. While this may be surprising for some, the multi-billionaire has a sketchy past when it comes to Black and brown people. In 2013, he was recorded on video making an insensitive comment about a Black woman. Famously in 2017, as NFL players took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustices, Jones gave his players an ultimatum: stand for the anthem or be cut from the team. Jones has also been called out on several other occasions for being silent on issues facing African-Americans, which is disheartening considering that many of his players are Black.
Though Jones admitted to being in the photo, he has not apologized for it nor issued a public statement about it.
Guessing Jerry Jones isn’t the only NFL owner who has something like this in his past. The wild part is the expectation that Black people are just supposed to naively trust that white people who were once eager participants in the dark parts of history magically have evolved. https://t.co/e3Gbb3xhTn
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) November 23, 2022
https://twitter.com/magic_zip/status/1595527195468136448?s=46&t=dXsodnI8TciQQRjOrEExxw
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