Redskins’ forgotten racial pioneer lives with mystery of his short-lived career

Had the administration of President John F. Kennedy not threatened in 1961 to keep the Redskins from playing in the new D.C. Stadium if he didn’t add black players, Marshall would have kept his team white. But in December of that year, Marshall picked Syracuse star Ernie Davis in the first round of the 1962 draft and traded him to Cleveland for Mitchell and Jackson, who was the Browns’ first pick that year. He also traded for Nisby and drafted Hatcher.

Jackson, who had been a star at Western Illinois, knew nothing about the draft or the trade or even much about the all-white Redskins. His first hint came when he returned to campus after a quarter break trip to his hometown of Chicago Heights, Ill., when a coach told him Redskins coach Bill McPeak wanted to talk to him.

Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, pictured in 1935, got pressure from JFK to integrate in the ’60s. (AP) …

And yet it wasn’t until Marshall met Jackson at training camp with a strict list of rules that he understood the significance of his presence.

“It was quite an interesting speech, I guess, because of the way he lived his life it was a new experience too,” Jackson remembers. “One thing he told me: I shouldn’t get involved with the NAACP, that was first on his list. The other part was keep my nose clean and stay away from the bad guys. You can take that any way you want to – bad guys – but it can mean a lot of things.”

Leroy pauses.

“I didn’t like the comment about the bad guys, but the NAACP was all right with me because in this sport you have guys trying to get at you to do this and do that and it can get you in trouble. The best way to stay out of trouble is to stay away from them.”

Other than that he says he never felt racism from his teammates. They never made comments. They didn’t ignore him. Most he says, were like him, fighting to keep their jobs. A few were even friendly.

“I don’t know if some of the guys liked me or not but I took a liking to some of them and some of them took a liking to me,” he says.

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