Jackie Robinson is well known across the country for breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. MLB has celebrated Jackie Robinson Day for nearly 20 years now on every April 15th. Robinson made his major league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
However, over a year before that, another Los Angeles team signed Kenny Washington, who broke the NFL’s color barrier by signing with the Rams on March 21, 1946.
When the Rams moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles, there was immediate pressure for the team to integrate as they were to play at the publicly owned Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Kevin Schatz and Larry Morgan of the Audacy Original Podcast “Welcome To The Bandwagon” talked about Washington breaking the NFL’s color barrier and questioned why more people don’t know his name and story.
“It’s interesting because Jackie Robinson, deservedly so, gets a lot of attention for breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, but that came a full year or so – a little less maybe – after Kenny Washington actually was signed to the Rams,” Morgan said (7:10 in player above). “So Kenny doesn’t get the same kind of attention and probably should.”
“That was my biggest question when I learned this is how – I grew up in LA, I grew up a big Dodgers fan so Jackie Robinson was a big part of what I learned about history,” Schatz said. “But I think across the nation, Jackie Robinson is a beloved figure and a huge name, and yet one full year earlier the NFL color barrier was broken so why don’t I know these names? Why aren’t these household names?”
Washington was actually a teammate of Robinson’s at UCLA and some said that he was an even better baseball player than the MLB’s pioneer. But Washington stuck with football and earned a contract in the NFL after being the highest-paid player in the Pacific Coast Professional Football League from 1940 to 1945.
So, why was Robinson’s story much more widespread?
“There are several theories. One of the probably biggest reasons is that baseball was way more popular at the time,” Schatz said. “At the time, baseball was above and beyond the most popular sport so there was just way more headlines for Jackie Robinson.
“One of the other interesting things to note is that there actually was an African-American football player very briefly in 1920, so like 20, 25 years before Kenny Washington came along. This is disgusting wording to me, but there was a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ made to not allow African-American people in the league – it’s insane.
“Fritz Pollard was technically the first African-American to play in the NFL. So I think that’s why the history gets a little bit murky and it’s not as clear cut as Jackie Robinson being the first to play in Major League Baseball.
“All that said, Kenny Washington, Woody Stroud, in my opinion, pioneers. I’m happy to have a platform to be able to share those names here during Black History Month and just in general. I think it’d be great if that was something more Rams fans knew and had pride in.”
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