ABSTRACT
In the fall of 1967, a group of student leaders at Grambling College in northern Louisiana began a protest they hoped would turn their world upside down. The students argued that Grambling placed more emphasis on athletic success than academic standards because the leaders of the college were more concerned about fulfilling the white supremacist goals of white state leaders than about educating. The students centered their protest against the overemphasis of athletics on the most important sports weekend of the year: the homecoming game. During the protest, the students effectively took over the campus and presented their demands through nearly a dozen leaflets handed out to students. The protest, one of the largest to ever occur on the campus of a Historically Black College, brought national attention to the college, and posed a direct challenge to the leaders of the college who dedicated their careers to accommodating white supremacy. Focusing on the tension between students who demanded their civil rights, and administrators who sought to please white state leaders, this chapter explores the role that sport protest played in the civil rights movement in Louisiana.
