Photo Surfaces Showing Jerry Jones Attempting To Help Keep Black Classmates Segregated In His High School
Ahead of his team's Thanksgiving matchup with the Giants, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was in the news Wednesday after a photo surfaced from his past showing his connection to one of the first instances of public school integration in his home state of Arkansas.
The photo�taken on Sept. 9, 1957, at North Little Rock High when Jones was 14 years old�shows a group of white students blocking the doorway and shouting slurs at six Black students as they tried to enter.
Jones confirmed he was a part of the crowd taunting Black students but said he didn't participate in the protest and just wanted to witness it.
According to The Washington Post's David Maraniss and Sally Jenkins, "At one point, a Black student named Richard Lindsey recalled, someone in the crowd put a hand on the back of his neck" before hurling a racial epithet at him.
"I don't know that I or anybody anticipated or had a background of knowing ... what was involved. It was more a curious thing," said Jones. (h/t The Washington Post)
The event occurred just a few weeks before the Little Rock Nine integrated Little Rock Central High School less than five miles away in what turned out to be one of the biggest moments of the civil rights movement.
Of course the fact that 1957 was a completely different time does need to be taken into account. But there's no way of knowing how black members of the Cowboys staff and team will react to something like this.
