Moments in NFL History: Day that changed game forever

Only a small number of events truly can be considered league-altering in the history of professional football.

RED GRANGE’S “Barnstorming Tour” of 1925, the AFL-NFL merger of 1970 and the 2002 division realignment are regarded as events that shaped and changed the sport. 

One of the most important league-altering events took place on this date (March 21) in 1946.

To set the scene, you must first flash back to 1904, when Charles Follis signed with the Shelby (Ohio) Athletic Club, making him the first African American paid to play professional football. 

In the years from 1920 to 1933, only 13 African Americans played in the National Football League, including FRITZ POLLARD and Rube Marshall. Then, from 1934 to 1945, no African Americans played in the National Football League.

That all changed March 21, 1946, when the Los Angeles Rams signed Kenny Washington and Woody Strode to contacts, reintegrating the game of professional football.

Washington, a star athlete at UCLA, should have starred in the league much sooner than his 1946 entrance into the NFL. In 1940, the owner of the Chicago Bears, GEORGE HALAS, saw the talent Washington possessed and wanted to sign him. 

Halas, however, would not go against an informal agreement made seven years prior by which NFL owners had agreed not to sign African American players to their rosters. Washington instead went on to play semi-professional football and join the LAPD before signing with the Rams.

Strode took his own unique path to the NFL. After also succeeding at UCLA, he played semi-professional football, but ended that career to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. After serving his country during World War II and a short time working for the Los Angeles County’s District Attorney’s Office, Strode joined Washington in signing with the Rams.

Joe Horrigan, Senior Advisor at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, football historian and author, noted the magnitude of reintegration.
“I think that date is one of the most important dates in the NFL’s first 50 years. While the signing of Washington and Strode came only after pressure from the Los Angeles press,” Horrigan said, “it still marked the beginning of an end to segregation in the league.”

Washington and Strode changed their sport, just like their college teammate Jackie Robinson did. He broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, altering that sport’s trajectory forever as well.

Washington’s and Strode’s path to the NFL were eerily similar: great athletes who were not given a chance after the collegiate careers; who both played for the same university and semi-professional football teams; who then went on to serve their country and protect its citizens; and who, together, reintegrated the sport of professional football.

Their impact on pro football, made initially on March 21, 1946, opened doors for athletes and the people who have admired their careers for decades and future generations to come.

This article from the Hall of Fame Communications Team is part of recurring series celebrating memorable moments in NFL history.