On January 1, 1956, Georgia Tech defeated the University of
Pittsburgh 7-0 in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. One of Pitt's
stars was Bobby Grier, an African-American fullback. Coming on
the heels of the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board
of Education school desegregation decision, many Southern
segregationists resented the presence of high-profile bi-racial
sporting events in the heart of the Old Confederacy. Over the
next several months, in the midst of passing myriad similar new
Jim Crow statutes, state legislators in Georgia and Louisiana
debated bills to outlaw integrated sporting events in their
states. Nothing ever became of the agitation in Georgia, but in
July of 1956, the Louisiana State assembly passed a social
segregation law that banned all integrated sporting events in
the state. Louisiana Governor Earl Long, brother of the
legendary Huey Long, signed the ball into law soon after. The
University of Wisconsin had not overtly faced Southern Jim Crow
athletic policies since the cancellati