The Position They Said We Couldn't Think: Black Quarterbacks in Photographs

The Position They Said We Couldn't Think: Black Quarterbacks in Photographs

CULTURETECHLENS · "Culture, Clearly Seen." · Black Cultural Intelligence

Fritz Pollard, 1916
Frederick "Fritz" Pollard, 1916.

The first. Fritz Pollard — Brown University, Rose Bowl 1916 — became the NFL's first Black quarterback with the Hammond Pros in 1923, and its first Black head coach in 1921. The league purged its Black players within a decade. Pollard spent the rest of his life barnstorming with all-Black teams, challenging NFL clubs to games they refused to play. The Hall of Fame came in 2005, nineteen years after his death.

The champion: 35 points in one quarter

Doug Williams, 1988
Doug Williams, 1988.

The masterpiece. Super Bowl XXII, January 31, 1988: Doug Williams threw 4 touchdowns in the second quarter — 35 points, the greatest quarter in Super Bowl history. The first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl, and its MVP. He'd been drafted 17th overall in 1978, led Tampa Bay to the NFC Championship, then was exiled to the USFL over a pay gap he attributed to racism.

The exile: five Grey Cups

Warren Moon, Houston Oilers, 1987
Warren Moon handing off, Houston Oilers, 1987.

He won five championships in Canada because America wouldn't let him play. Undrafted in 1978, told to switch to tight end, Warren Moon signed with Edmonton instead — five straight Grey Cups, then the NFL finally called. Nine Pro Bowls, 1990 Offensive Player of the Year, the only player in both the Pro Football and Canadian Football Halls of Fame. The exile cost him his twenties.

The century: two quarterbacks, one field

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles, 2021
Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles, 2021. (All-Pro Reels, CC BY-SA 2.0)

100 years, two quarterbacks. Super Bowl LVII, February 2023: Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts — the first Super Bowl with two Black starting quarterbacks. One hundred years after Fritz Pollard called signals in Hammond, Indiana. The arc is real. So is everything it cost to bend it.

The missing photographs. No rights-cleared photographs exist of Willie Thrower (the first modern-era Black NFL quarterback, 1953), Marlin Briscoe (14 touchdowns as a Broncos rookie, never played QB again), or James Harris (the $6-a-night YMCA, then the Pro Bowl). Their absence from the visual record is part of the story — the erasure was the point.

Source: CultureTechLens. "Culture, Clearly Seen." culturetechlens.com

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