re: Why Did Bear Bryant Wait Seven Years to Integrate Bama Football?

quote:

---

Bryant, the public would learn years after that game, had been pushing for integration of the University of Alabama football team for years but found himself up against a brick wall named Governor George Wallace, a University of Alabama grad famous for his “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”: an ugly occasion on which he tried to physically block black students from enrolling at the school. Bryant, whose winning teams had made him the most popular person in Alabama, was so determined that he threatened to run for political office—and though he did not say it, insiders were certain he could only have meant running for governor. He even invited Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and his wife for dinner in Tuscaloosa.

---