Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes

14. Jim Brown: Superlative Athlete, Screen Star, Social Activist

Jimmy Brown sitting on the Cleveland Browns bench during a game in 1958. (Getty Images) 2WIGGINS_pages_133-262.qxd 9/12/06 12:01 PM Page 240 14 Jim Brown Superlative Athlete, Screen Star, Social Activist J . T H O M A S J A B L E Athlete par excellence, football icon, movie star, social activist just begin to describe the broad and diverse characteristics that make up the complex personality of Jim Brown. As a football player, he had no equal; as an actor, he brought an African American action character to the movie screen; and as a champion of social justice, he reached deep into the African American community with economic aid and personal self-help. Yet beneath his signature African tiara, Jim Brown is a highly complex individual: an athlete whom most consider to have been the best of all time, a pioneer film star whose interracial love scenes transcended racial boundaries, a powerful voice of the African American people that relentlessly pursued racial equality and economic prosperity for the black community , and a sometimes angry and distraught person with a history of physical assault charges. Brown’s most recent foray with the law ended in a six-month jail sentence in 2002, the result of an argument with his wife that led to his breaking out her car windows. Brown protested what he considered to be an unjust sentence by refusing to take food for twenty-seven days. In four months he was set free, but during that time he was placed in lockdown for twenty-three hours of each day. Spending all but an hour each day in virtual solitude for four months and carrying out a hunger fast on top of that required enormous will power, discipline, determination, commitment, and self-confidence, all of which Brown possesses. This essay examines the nature of this unique and perplexing person as he confronted the challenges and obstacles of being a black man in American society. And in doing so, it attempts to unravel some of the complexities shrouding Jim Brown, providing perhaps greater insight to 2WIGGINS_pages_133-262.qxd 9/12/06 12:01 PM Page 241 this marvel of an athlete, actor, and activist whose life began nearly seventy years ago on an island off the Georgia coast. Born on St. Simons Island in 1936, Jim Brown spent the first eight years of his life in a segregated African American community where church and family were the focal points. During those early years, he was reared by his great-grandmother due to his father’s abandonment two weeks after his birth and his mother’s migration to Manhasset Long Island when he was two years old. He joined his mother up north in 1944 when his great-grandmother died. Life in integrated Manhasset was a much different experience for the young Brown than it had been on St. Simons. In his new environment Brown found himself involved in a bevy of fistfights provoked by his new schoolmates. Already an experienced and crafty fighter, Brown eventually established a reputation that led to his becoming president and warlord of a local gang, the Gaylords. Had it not been for athletics and a half dozen coaches and educators, Brown says he probably would have been a “career gangster.” His high school football coach, Ed Walsh, was an early savior. Walsh gave Brown confidence, direction, and guidance, in shielding him from trouble. Brown was the consummate high school athlete, lettering in football, basketball, baseball, track and field, and lacrosse. During his senior year, he averaged 14.9 yards per carry on the gridiron and thirtyeight points a game on the basketball court. In addition to his athletic exploits, Brown was active in student government. He declined the nomination for student government president because he thought the office should go to a scholar with an enviable academic record. Instead, he was elected chief justice of the student court.1 When it came time for college, Brown wound up at Syracuse University, due to the efforts of Kenneth Malloy, a local attorney and former Syracuse lacrosse player, who befriended Brown. Malloy took a keen interest in Brown when he began to shine as an athlete during his adolescent years, over time earning Brown’s trust as an advisor and confidant . Although Syracuse was not one of the forty-five colleges that offered Brown an athletic grant-in-aid to play...