25 lugl 1946 anni - Kenny Washington- Race and Culture

Descrizione:

Kenny Washington was a star football player that had everyone’s attention during both his high school and professional football career. Washington was so good that in 1939 he played over 600 minutes and led the nations statistics in the number of times a player scored. Along with being at the top of the leaderboards he also became the first player from UCLA to be named an All American. Although Washington was a star both on and off the field he did not get signed by the NFL (The National Football League) as they had a 12-year ban on African American players, that had been put in place by the former Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. So, as a result, Kenny Washington coached the junior UCLA football team for a while then played semi-pro football for four seasons. Finally, in 1946, the NFL dropped it’s ban and signed Washington as one of the first African Americans to be on a contract with the NFL in the modern era.

This shows race and culture because after the NFL’s 12-year long ban they allowed players with different cultures and race to participate in the sport professionally like Kenny Washington or Woody Strode. Without having the ban lifted and athletes like Washington not able to participate then the professional players would not be the best when the association is discriminating such a large part of society based on their race or culture.

Without having diverse races and cultures in sports and society it would be total discrimination towards so many people. Children would have a different type of mindset about what they couldn’t do because who they are and what they look like which would be similar to the 1600’s during African American slavery. Which society as a whole should not repeat history but change it. Kenny Washington was one of the first African Americans to change apart of society in relation to sports, therefore changing so the future will not resemble the past, where people have limited career paths because of who they are.

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