“America's attention had turned to race relations during that winter of 1954-55, largely driven by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the nation's public schools would eventually have to be racially integrated. Crispus Attucks students were studying black history without being fully aware that their basketball team was making it.” BasketballIntegrationSupreme CourtBlack HistoryRace RelationsIntegratedUs Supreme CourtCrispus Attucks Book:Unbeatable: How Crispus Attucks Basketball Broke Racial Barriers and Jolted the World Source: Unbeatable: How Crispus Attucks Basketball Broke Racial Barriers and Jolted the World
“To many white fans, the Attucks players were like the Harlem Globetrotters, entertainers who had come to play an exhibition. But the games meant something quite different to Principal Lane. He viewed each backwoods gym as a showcase for progress and each Attucks player a goodwill ambassador. A game at a rural schoolhouse was a chance to demonstrate to white fans, some of whom doubtless still had robes and hoods stashed in their closets, that black and white Hoosiers could compete without violence or incident. If Hoosiers could observe racial harmony while their sons competed in a packed gym, Lane thought, they would later come to believe in its possibility in schools and neighborhoods.” PeaceBasketballSegregationRace RelationsHoosiersAmbassadorRacial Harmony Book:Unbeatable: How Crispus Attucks Basketball Broke Racial Barriers and Jolted the World Source: Unbeatable: How Crispus Attucks Basketball Broke Racial Barriers and Jolted the World
