Thom Gossom and Auburn Football Segregation

There is a must read article in the War Eagle Reader about Thom Gossom.

He was a star on the one stage our mutual home state of Alabama continues to care about above all others, but at a time when the spotlight of that humid autumn sun really brought out the color in your skin. Thom Gossom was the second black football player at the first Division I school in Alabama to break the gridiron’s color barrier.

That school was not the University of Alabama.

It’s the story of segregation in the south viewed, at one level, through the filter of college football, but at another through the personal stories of Mr. Gossom. It’s a long article so, if you don’t have much time right now, at the very least go read the opening story.

He is writing an autobiography titled Walk-On: My Reluctant Journey to Integration at Auburn University. He talks a bit about it in this interview on YouTube, where he mentions that it’s coming out in August, but the War Eagle Reader says September 9. I’m not having any luck tracking it down though.

Oh, also, Thom Gossom has since become a pretty successful actor.