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Article

Bullock, Matthew Washington  

Gregory Travis Bond

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

athlete, football coach, college administrator, lawyer, and public servant, was born in Dabney, North Carolina, to former slaves Jesse Bullock and Amanda Sneed Bullock. Looking for better educational prospects for their seven children and perhaps seeking to escape Ku Klux Klan harassment, his parents moved the family north when Bullock was eight years old. After a brief stay in Boston, the family settled in Everett, Massachusetts, in about 1894, where Bullock first made a name for himself as an athlete. At Everett High School he excelled at football, baseball, and ice hockey, and his teammates elected him to serve as the captain of each of these teams his senior season.

After graduating in 1900 Bullock entered Dartmouth College which like many schools outside of the South admitted black students and encouraged them to participate in the life of the school Bullock took advantage of the wide range ...

Article

DeFrantz, Anita L.  

Winifred W. Thompson

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
19 May 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Anita L. DeFrantz is one of the most influential people in sports in the early twenty-first century. She became involved in the Olympic field as a competitor when she won a bronze medal on the U.S. women’s eight-oared shell at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She was the first woman to represent the United States on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1986 and, in 1997, she became the first woman, as well as the first African American, to be vice president of the IOC. DeFrantz has worked on the Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Atlanta Olympic Games as a member of the United States Olympic Executive Committee.

DeFrantz was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Robert and Anita P. DeFrantz Her father directed the Community Action against Poverty organization her mother taught and eventually became a professor of Education at the University of San Francisco DeFrantz s ...

Article

Gourdin, Edward Orval (Ned)  

Edward Morrow

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Edward Orval Gourdin was born on August 10, 1897, in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Walter Holmes and Felicia Garvin Gourdin. As a child, Gourdin demonstrated such athletic and scholarly excellence that his family sacrificed and took him to Massachusetts to realize his potential. He prepared at Stanton and Cambridge Latin high schools for Harvard College and graduated in 1921 with a B.A. degree; he completed Harvard Law School in 1924 with an LL.B. degree. On May 10, 1923, he married Amalia Ponce of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who became the mother of their four children: Elizabeth, Ann Robinson, Amalia Lindal, and Edward O., Jr.

Gourdin gained fame as an athlete during his college and university career, passed the bar, practiced law in Boston, Massachusetts, and joined the National Guard in 1925. During World War II he served as lieutenant colonel and later ...

Article

Kearse, Amalya Lyle  

Yvonne L. Hughes

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

lawyer, jurist, and champion bridge player, was born in Vauxhall, New Jersey, the daughter of Myra Lyle Smith, a physician and antipoverty director, and Robert Freeman Kearse, a local postmaster. Kearse's parents encouraged her to develop her substantial intellectual skills, and were the catalyst for her dreams of becoming a lawyer and, later, a public servant. Profiled by Ebony in 1966, Kearse revealed that her legal aspirations began in childhood. “I became an attorney,” she stated, “because I once wanted [as a child] to be an FBI agent.” “My father always wanted to be a lawyer,” Kearse told the New York Times in 1979 The Depression had a lot to do with why he didn t I got a lot of encouragement Kearse s mother hoped her daughter would pursue a career in medicine But I couldn t Kearse explained I was too ...

Article

Marshall, Napoleon Bonaparte  

Gregory Travis Bond

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

athlete, lawyer, soldier, and civil servant, was born in Washington, D.C., to Alexander Marshall, an employee of the Treasury Department, and Leatha Marshall, a homemaker. He attended the M Street High School, then prepped for a year at New Hampshire's Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was editor-in-chief of the Phillips Exeter Literary Monthly and a member of the track team. In 1893 he entered Harvard and immediately joined the Crimson track squad, on which he represented the college for four consecutive seasons, specializing in the 440-meter and quarter-mile runs. In 1894 he finished third in the quarter-mile at the Inter-Collegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America national championships. He competed for three more seasons and became the school's second black varsity athlete behind the football player William Henry Lewis Marshall was also an active member of the Harvard Union debating club and was well ...

Article

Renfro, Mel  

Michael C. Miller

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

football player, was born Melvin Lacy Elisha Renfro in Houston, Texas. When Mel was four his family moved to Portland, Oregon. He attended Jefferson High School, where he excelled as a football player, playing offense (quarterback and running back), defense (defensive back), and special teams (kick and punt returner). Renfro led Jefferson to thirty-four consecutive victories, including three state championships. The only loss he suffered was the state championship his senior year. He graduated high school in 1960.

Renfro attended Oregon University where he ran track and played football becoming one of the best players in the school s history As in high school he played offense defense and special teams For his career he amassed 1 540 rushing yards averaging 5 5 yards per carry and twenty three touchdowns On defense he played safety and once recorded an astounding twenty one tackles in a game against Ohio ...

Article

Slater, Duke  

John M. Carroll

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

football player and judge, was born Frederick Wayman Slater in Normal, Illinois, the son of the Reverend George W. Slater Jr. and Letha Jones. As a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Slater's father moved around so frequently that as a boy he was left to live for long periods with his grandparents in Chicago. During these visits he played “prairie” football, a pick-up form of the game, at Racine Avenue and Sixty-first Street, the neighborhood from which would spring his future team, the Chicago Cardinals. His old friends speculated that Slater received his nickname because of a mongrel dog named Duke, which he owned as a boy.

In 1913 his father accepted a position in Clinton Iowa where Slater attended high school and played football When he asked his parents to buy him a helmet and a pair of football shoes neither of ...

Article

Slater, Duke  

John M. Carroll

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
21 January 1999
Published online:
01 December 2006

Slater, Duke (19 December 1898–15 August 1966), football player and judge, was born Frederick Wayman Slater in Normal, Illinois, the son of the Reverend George W. Slater, Jr., and Letha Jones. As a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal church, Slater’s father moved around so frequently that as a boy he was left to live for long periods with his grandparents in Chicago. During these visits he recalled playing “prairie” football, a pick-up form of the game, at Racine Avenue and Sixty-first Street, the neighborhood from which would spring his future team, the Chicago Cardinals. His old friends speculated that Slater received his nickname because of a mongrel dog named Duke, which he owned as a boy.

In 1913 his father accepted a position in Clinton Iowa where Slater attended high school and played football When he asked his parents to buy him a helmet and a ...