‘We surely got to inform our story’: The IU 10’s fight for racial justice in ’60s Indiana

There’s a perfectly snapped photo from the 3rd quarter associated with the 1968 Rose Bowl that displays two Indiana defenders colliding in the back ground as O.J. Simpson squeezes past them for the 2nd of his two touchdowns in a 14-3 USC triumph.

Among the Hoosiers is Black, one other White, an image that is fitting a college that produced 1st African US player drafted into the NFL – George Taliaferro in 1949.

Unbefitting for the system and perhaps unknown during the time, there was clearly growing anger and resentment on campus that would stop the Hoosiers from returning to Pasadena under coach John Pont – the program tripped up by racial unrest that resulted in a 10-player walkout, not unlike those seen this present year across North America. Towards the IU 10, as the boycotting players came into existence understood, 2020 has some noteworthy similarities to 1969.

In 1969, the wildly unpopular Vietnam War dominated the narrative. Now, it’s COVID-19 and a body politic that can be as fractured as ever, the bottom shifting beneath us in the wake of the killing that is horrific of Floyd and other folks of color. A country’s very threatening that is fabric unravel.

Even through the 1969 period, the IU 10 were not alone in going for a stand. There have been protests and walkouts by Black football players through the entire country, including during the University of Wyoming, Michigan State and somewhere else. Those had been the occasions. Dissent and protest were into the atmosphere. The status quo was imperiled. Business as always would no more be acceptable to those who got the brief end associated with stick. Then because it has become.

In Bloomington, those things of the IU 10 left an indelible mark on the university. The players’ refusal to be involved in the ultimate three games ruined an once-hopeful period, the Hoosiers losing all three games and falling far in short supply of time for the Rose Bowl. More crucial, though, it created a distressing but awareness that is necessary all was not well and equitable in your community of race relations – in sports or anywhere else in the country. It could have fallen on deaf ears at the right time, but decades later, specifically 51 years later on, those voices of dissent nevertheless echo in the actions of today’s athletes.

The men who took a stand at Indiana paid a significant price in their life, from personal chaos to lost opportunities to play within the NFL. Yes, there was no Rose Bowl for the Hoosiers that season — in fact, no Indiana group is back in to Pasadena since ’68 — but also for the IU 10, there is forget about football. Maybe Not that period, and never once more. Yet they do say it would be done by them all over again.

“No regrets, none at all,” said Clarence Price, a senior protective end for Indiana in 1969. “I endured up for the guys on my group. All the others suffered the maximum amount of or higher if my brother is suffering, I’m suffering than I did (in the aftermath of the walkout), but the way I look at it. Our hearts were into the right destination. I’d do it yet again. I would.”

Charles Murphy, a senior defensive tackle in 1969 and another person in the IU 10, remembers the minute demonstrably. The Hoosiers had just finished a workout that is grueling he approached Pont with a request. He knew Pont failed to allow hair on your face, but nonetheless, he asked the top advisor if he could develop a mustache. Pont sharply declined and Murphy stepped away crestfallen. Not because of Pont’s refusal to allow him grow a mustache, but due to the insensitive comment the coach made when he responded: “Why? You wish to cover up that mexican cupid username upper lip?”

Another time, Murphy asked a coach that is assistant he wasn’t receiving more playing time.