Most everyone knows of the quiet dignity and grace of Pasadena’s Jackie Robinson and they way he spoke with his bat, glove and spikes as the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. But a decade after Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, Syracuse’s Ernie Davis became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy during the Orangemen’s 1959 national title run.
This October, the motion picture “The Express” will chronicle Davis’ Syracuse career. Because it deals with the cultural divide of racism and on-field success, I am wondering if the release of the movie will have an impact on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Undecided voters may be aksing themselves, “does race matter?”Â
Should it?