by Jay Hammond and Lisa Little

The Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 was the first step toward freeing the slaves in America. Although the resulting 13th Amendment meant that former slaves suddenly did not have to answer to any master, it did not mean the end of oppression. Many years would pass before African Americans would be afforded the full freedoms taken for granted by most white Americans, including the right to participate in organized sports.

In some disciplines, by the turn of the century, African Americans did find sports success. Jockey Jimmy Winkfield won the 1902 Kentucky Derby in an era when black jockeys dominated the sport. In 1908, John Baxter "Doc" Taylor of the University of Pennsylvania was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal as a member of the 4 x 400 medley during the London Games. But in the sport of wrestling, another 80 years would pass before a black athlete stood atop the podium in Seoul with the gleaming gold medal around his neck.

While African Americans were winning track gold medals, boxing to world championships and forming baseball's Negro National League, black youngsters were denied the opportunity to learn even the basics of wrestling because of restrictions placed on them by state high school associations. It wasn't until 1949, 13 years after Jessie Owens flouted Adolph Hitler's theories of racial superiority, winning four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics, that a black athlete is known to have wrestled in the NCAA championships. Harold Hanson, representing San Diego State, lost his only match, 7-3, to Don Meeker of Oklahoma State in the 136-pound quarter-final. At the time, Jackie Robinson had already been playing for the major league's Brooklyn Dodgers for two years.

By the early 1950s, blacks were allowed to participate in high school wrestling in most northern states. In 1954, the same year that Brown v. Board of Education overturned legal school segregation, Davenport's Simon Roberts became the first African American to win an Iowa high school championship, defeating Ron Gray of Eagle Grove, a two-time defending state champion, to win the title. Roberts matriculated to the University of Iowa in the fall of 1954 and a year later, as Rosa Parks quietly started a movement by refusing to change seats on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, he earned a starting spot on the Hawkeye wrestling team. He finished third in the Big Ten and reached the quarter-finals of the NCAA tournament before being eliminated. The following year, 1957, Roberts won the 147-pound title over former high school nemesis Gray, who was wrestling for Iowa State, 2-2, 2-0. As he returned for his final year of collegiate wrestling, Congress passed the Voting Rights Bill of 1957, the first major civil rights legislation in more than 75 years. Roberts won the Big Ten title as a senior, but was upset in an early round at the NCAA tournament, failing to place and ending his ground-breaking wrestling career as the first African American to win Iowa high school, Big Ten and NCAA titles.

In 1959, the unique musical style of Detroit, Michigan, was solidified with the founding of Motown Records. That same year, Art Baker of Syracuse defeated Michigan State's Tim Woodin in the 191-pound final to become the second African American to win an NCAA wrestling title. His pioneering feats included being the first black to win Pennsylvania high school and EIWA championships. A starting halfback on Syracuse's 1959 national champion football team, he chose to focus solely on football after winning his NCAA title as a sophomore. 

His fellow Syracuse running back, Ernie Davis made history in 1962 as the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. During wrestling season earlier that year, the nation's most successful collegiate wrestling program welcomed its first black competitor. Powerfully built Chicago native Joe James was the first African American to wrestle for Oklahoma State, winner to that point of 20 NCAA team titles. James lost a narrow 2-1 decision to Wayne Baughman of Oklahoma in the 1962 NCAA finals at 191 pounds. The next season, he moved up to heavyweight. When he faced and defeated Eddie McQuarters of Oklahoma, it marked the first time that two African American athletes met in the intra-state rivalry Bedlam dual. After becoming the first black to win a Big Eight title, James was favored to win the 1963 NCAA heavyweight title at Kent State, however, he lost a split referees' decision to Larry Kristoff of SIU-Carbondale in the semi-finals. Another Syracuse football player, Jim Nance, beat Kristoff in the finals to become the third African American NCAA champion and the first to win the heavyweight title. Another black wrestler, Bobby Douglas, whose influence on the sport would stretch into the next four decades, finished second at 130 pounds. 

Shortly after the NCAA tournament, blacks, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., began a campaign against discrimination that started in Birmingham and, by the end of August, had included civil rights protests in most major urban areas. The climax of the summer was the largest civil rights demonstration ever, the March on Washington where King delivered his unforgettable "I Have a Dream" speech.

James finally won an NCAA title in 1964, but a possible matchup with Nance did not materialize as the Syracuse wrestler was upset in the quarter-finals. Douglas was ineligible to wrestle in NCAA competition after transferring to Oklahoma State but did compete and win the freestyle Olympic Trials, joining two other African Americans -Charles Tribble (freestyle) and Robert Pickens (Greco-Roman) as the first blacks to represent the United States in Olympic wrestling competition. Douglas just missed winning a medal, finishing fourth at 63 kilos. As the year drew to a close, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1965, while Bill Cosby starred in I Spy and became the first African American to headline a television show, Nance again reclaimed his NCAA heavyweight title. In that same tournament, Iowa State's Veryl Long won at 147 pounds, the first time that more than one African American won a title at an NCAA tournament. Douglas was a heavy favorite to win Long's weight, but suffered a severe concussion in the first round and could not continue. Despite this setback, Douglas became a fixture on the U.S. freestyle team and was the first American wrestler, black or white, to finish higher than third in the world championships when he won a silver medal in 1966.

By the late sixties, against the backdrop of the emerging "black power" movement, African Americans were routinely excelling on the mats. Curley Culp of Arizona State pinned three of four opponents to win the NCAA heavyweight crown in 1967, the same year that Thurgood Marshall was appointed the first African American justice on the Supreme Court. 1967 was also the year that world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title because he refused to fight in the Vietnam War. "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong," he said. "No Viet Cong ever called me 'nigger.'" Jason Smith of Iowa State won back-to-back NCAA wrestling titles in 1969 and 1970. Cyclone teammate Carl Adams became the first freshman All-American in two decades by finishing fifth in 1969 and then won titles in 1971 and 1972. In the midst of those years, Douglas continued to compete in freestyle and again made the U.S. Olympic team in 1968, but an injury during his first bout in Mexico City ended his dream of Olympic glory.

On the coaching front, Don Benning became the first African American to lead a collegiate wrestling team when he took the helm at Nebraska-Omaha in 1964. His first season, he had a losing record, but Nebraska-Omaha rapidly became a wrestling power in the NAIA. In 1970, the Mavericks won the team title, and it is believed that Benning was the first African American coach to win a national collegiate title in any sport.

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix headlined Woodstock, playing a memorable version of the Star Spangled Banner. A year later he was dead at age 27. But wrestling thrived in the 1970s, providing numerous milestones for African American wrestlers. Jimmy Carr made the 1972 Olympic team at the age of 17, making him, to this day, the youngest wrestler ever to represent the United States in the Olympic Games. Later that year, Shirley Chisolm became the first black woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1973, Lloyd Keaser won a freestyle world gold medal. Three years later, the year that Alex Haley received a special Pulitzer Prize for his bestselling novel, Roots, Keaser won a silver medal in the Montreal Olympics. In 1978, Leroy Kemp of Wisconsin and Jimmy Jackson of Oklahoma State each won their third NCAA titles. A split referees' decision loss in the 1975 finals prevented Kemp from being the first four-time NCAA champion. At the end of the decade, Darryl Burley of Lehigh became the first African American to win an NCAA title as a true freshman, and the Sugar Hill Gang released the first commercial rap music hit, Rapper's Delight.

President Carter's boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics denied Kemp and Chris Campbell, a two-time NCAA champion at Iowa, the opportunity to be the first African American Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. Kemp won world championships in 1978, 1979 and 1982 and Campbell won in 1981. Remarkably, Campbell came out of retirement in 1992, at the age of 37, and captured a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

While Michael Jackson's Thriller was racking up sales, Iowa State's Nate Carr was racking up wins and providing some thrills of his own. He won the 142-pound 1981 NCAA championship handily. But in 1982, one of the fiercest rivalries in wrestling heated up. Carr met Oklahoma State's Kenny Monday three times during the 1982 season, losing two of them, including a stunning fall in the Big Eight Conference finals. Two weeks later, at the NCAA, Carr successfully defended his title, beating Monday in overtime. The next year, it was Carr who beat Monday twice, including another overtime win in the finals of the NCAA tournament to become the third African American three-time NCAA champion. 

In 1984, Jessie Jackson created unprecedented fervor when he ran for president of the United States. Greg Gibson became the first African American to win a medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Four years later, in Seoul, Monday and Carr wrestled together again, this time as teammates. Carr won a bronze medal while in the next heavier weight class, Monday made history, becoming the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling. He won a world championship the next year and a silver medal in the next Olympiad before finishing his career with a sixth-place finish in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

At the same time that Monday was making Olympic history, Carlton Haselrig was making collegiate history, becoming the fourth wrestler to win three NCAA Division I crowns. He competed for Division II Pitt-Johnstown, so he had to win the Division II championship just to qualify for the Division I tournament. By the time it was all said and done, Haselrig actually won six NCAA wrestling heavyweight titles, three in Division II and three in Divison I.

His second year of titles, 1988, was the same year that Bobby Douglas made coaching history. Douglas had turned to coaching after retiring from competition in the early seventies. He coached one year at Cal State-Santa Barbara before taking charge at Arizona State in 1974. Slowly, he built the Sun Devils into a national contender and in 1988, they won the NCAA team title without crowning a single champion. It was the first and only time that a school west of the Rocky Mountains won a team crown. Douglas coached ASU to second in 1989 and 1990 and moved to Iowa State in 1993, where he finished second three times and coached the nation's first undefeated four-time NCAA champion, Cael Sanderson. Douglas was retired after the 2006 season with 429 dual meet wins.

In 1989, the U.S. women's freestyle team made its debut on the international stage, appearing in the world championships in Martigny, Switzerland alongside men's freestyle and Greco-Roman. Leia Kawaii made U.S. history, bringing home a silver medal.

African American wrestlers continued to excel in the nineties. Rodney Smith became the second to win an Olympic medal in Greco-Roman wrestling, earning a bronze at the 1992 games in Barcelona. Kevin Jackson, a former Iowa State wrestler and 1987 NCAA runner-up, won Olympic freestyle gold in Barcelona as well as a pair of world championships. Townsend Saunders earned a freestyle silver medal in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Kerry McCoy of Penn State ripped off 88 straight wins while winning two NCAA titles and a third place medal. He made the 2000 and 2004 Olympic freestyle teams and captured a silver medal at the 2003 world championships. McCoy is currently the head coach at Stanford University.

Joe Williams of Iowa and Greg Jones of West Virginia each won three NCAA titles. Both were named Outstanding Wrestler of the NCAA tournament as seniors. Williams and his sibling, T.J., are the only African American brother combination to win NCAA titles. Joe won a bronze medal at the 2001 and 2005 World Championships and finished fourth at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. He is currently ranked No. 1 in the United States at 84 kilos and will vie for a spot on the 2008 Olympic team. Another athlete vying for a spot on the 2008 team, Dremiel Byers, became the first African American to win a Greco-Roman world championship with his heavyweight victory in 2002.

Women's freestyle wrestling continued to grow and African American participation with it. Tina George represented the United States seven times in the world championships, winning two silver medals, in 2002 and 2003. Toccara Montgomery also won two silver medals, in 2001 and 2003, and made history as the first African American woman to wrestle in the Olympics when the sport was added to the 2004 Athens games. And finally, Iris Smith became the first African American world champion, winning gold in Budapest in 2005.

In the half century since Simon Roberts won his NCAA title, 45 other African American wrestlers have joined him at the top of the podium. Blacks have also won national, world and Olympic wrestling titles and become successful coaches and officials. Wrestling ranks second to track and field in terms of total titles and medals won by black athletes among those NCAA sports that award individual crowns. Without doubt, African American participation in wrestling has added not just to successes on the mat, but also has endowed a depth and richness of culture to mankind's oldest and greatest sport.


© 2008
National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum