It’s as if time has ignored the other first black Redskin. Ask most fans in this city to name the team’s initial African-American player and they will say it is Hall of Fame running back Bobby Mitchell. They are right. Mitchell played that day at the Cotton Bowl, scoring three touchdowns in a 35-35 tie with the Cowboys. But long forgotten are the two men who were the first with him: Jackson and guard John Nisby.
And of those two, Jackson gets almost no credit for being there.
Last year the New York Times ran a story on the Redskins’ first black players and replaced Jackson with fullback Ron Hatcher, who was cut days before the opening game. Thomas G. Smith’s 277-page book on the integration of the team called “Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins” contains just three mentions of Jackson. And until he sat down for this story, the man who was one of three Jackie Robinsons on the Washington Redskins had never been interviewed.
It’s as if he never existed.
“Only a few people know who I am and they know who I am through other people,” he says.