{"id":41,"date":"2021-08-10T20:52:27","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T20:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalexhibits.syr.edu\/syracuse8\/?page_id=41"},"modified":"2024-08-02T18:07:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T18:07:39","slug":"beginnings-of-the-boycott","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/digitalexhibits.syr.edu\/syracuse8\/beginnings-of-the-boycott\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginnings of the Boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Beginnings of the Boycott\n<\/span><\/h1>\n

Starting in 1968 and again in 1969, Black football players at Syracuse University expressed concerns about racial discrimination within the football program. They cited instances of unfair treatment, ranging from differences in disciplinary action for Black and white teammates to the coaching staff\u2019s intolerance of Black student-athletes\u2019 civil rights activism elsewhere on campus. The student-athletes also repeatedly requested that head football coach Ben Schwartzwalder hire a Black assistant coach, whom they hoped could advocate for them to the coaching staff and ensure they would be treated equally and with respect. Schwartzwalder promised to hire a Black coach in March 1969, and the Black student-athletes played that fall season with the understanding that this would happen, but the head football coach failed to follow through. In the spring of 1970, he arranged for Syracuse football great Floyd Little \u201867 to visit spring practice under the pretense of an assistant football coach. The alumnus provided scant support to the Black student-athletes and publicly expressed doubt about their concerns. Little stayed only for a few days, and Schwartzwalder had still not kept his promise to hire a Black assistant coach. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\nThe Student-Athletes<\/span><\/h1>\nThe University Archives holds very few original photographs of the Black student-athletes and their boycott of the football program in 1970. Their activism mainly took the form of their absence from the football team and in their written words to University administration. It is difficult to document in photographs all the private meetings with administrators, coaches, and among the athletes themselves. However, there were student demonstrations in support of the boycott, and members of the Syracuse 8 did appear at student rallies, but the few images of these events primarily appear in the Daily Orange<\/em>. On the other hand, the University Archives holds many photographs of the May 1970 Student Strike, where (mostly white) students shut down campus in protest of the Kent State shootings and the United States\u2019 invasion of Cambodia. Those images were taken by University staff and even local newspapers. While the Student Strike was a larger occurrence, the lack of photographs of Syracuse 8 protests may speak to institutional racism inherent on campus and beyond at the time.\n\n\n\n
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