Syracuse 8

The Syracuse Eight were 9 college football players who advocated for an end to discrimination against African American football players at Syracuse University and for other reforms to the program. They eventually boycotted a practice and then the 1969 season.[1][2]

In 1969 a group of nine African American student-athletes boycotted Syracuse University's football program to demand change and promote racial equality. Popularized erroneously in 1970 by the media as the “Syracuse 8,” the nine students behind the boycott were Gregory Allen, Richard Bulls, Dana Harrell, John Godbolt, John Lobon, Clarence “Bucky” McGill, A. Alif Muhammad (then known as Al Newton), Duane Walker, and Ron Womack.[3] The student athletes drafted a list of four demands, three of which were advocating for the betterment for all student athletes at the university, were access to the same academic tutoring as their white teammates; better medical care for all team members; starting assignments based on merit; and racially integrating the coaching staff, which had been all white since 1898.[4]

  1. ^ "Before Kaepernick, The 'Syracuse 8' Were Blackballed By Pro Football". www.wbur.org.
  2. ^ "The Story of the Syracuse 8". The Players' Tribune. 23 October 2015.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference medal_2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Nelson Manfred Blake (October 1969). "Novelists' America: Fiction as History, 1910–1940". The American Historical Review. Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press: xiii, 279. $6.95.). doi:10.1086/ahr/75.1.228. ISSN 1937-5239.