The Reverend Jesse Jackson was the keynote speaker for the week-long Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Boise State University (BSU) in Boise Idaho on January 17, 2007.  The Reverend was well received by a near-capacity crowd at the school’s Taco Bell Arena.

Jackson’s visit followed BSU’s remarkable win at the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day.  Jackson used the football analogy and related the need for diversity through sports.

He said the nation is made of those who are black, brown, yellow and white and added that people do best when all are included.

“On the field, what gave your school a chance?” Jackson asked. “The playing field was even.” “At the end of the day, how do we treat people? How do we get along? ... How do we treat those whose backs are against the wall?”

According to Jackson, how an individual treats those who are less fortunate determines personal character. “Dr. King said we need to learn to live together,” Jackson said.

Before his speech, Jackson spoke to reporters about the BSU team that won the Fiesta Bowl. “That multiracial team was a part of the fruit of (the Rev. Martin Luther King’s) labors.’’ He went on to say, “You wouldn’t have had that team on the field in 1955, in 1965.  When you see Boise State and Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, neither of those schools allowed blacks to play on their teams in 1955,’’ Jackson said. 

Unfortunately, Jackson had not done his homework and committed the unpardonable sin of profiling.  An entire school, city, and state were painted with the same broad brush of intolerance.  His misstep resulted in a flood of questioning by Idaho historians. 

Alan Virta, BSU Archivist, said that Boise State has had black athletes as far back as the 1940s.  Virta called former football coach Lyle Smith, who coached at the school in the 1940s and 1950s.  Smith said there had been no policy denying black athletes the right to play. Virta went on to mention Aurelius Buckner, a student from 1944 to 1946, who played on the college’s six-man football team and was the high scorer on the school’s basketball team in the winter of 1944 and 1945.  Buckner was one of a few non-white athletes at the small school. 

No apology from the Reverend Jackson has been made, nor has one been requested by the university.  While Jackson did inappropriately stereotype/profile, the people of Idaho have not condemned him for it.  They listened to his message took to heart the good things he said.

Robert L. Griffard

Robert L. Griffard is the Owner-Editor of http://newsbyus.com/ On occasion happenings inspire him to write.