“Chester Pierce, a Negro is the guest of the University of Virginia and nothing would shame us more than having an unfortunate incident during the game tomorrow.”
Colgate W. Darden, President, University of Virginia, October 10, 1947, addressing a pep rally on the eve of the Harvard -Virginia game to be played in Charlottesville.
On October 11, 1947, tackle Chet Pierce (front row, second front left with teammate Robert F. Kennedy, far right) became the first Black to play in a college football game south of the Mason-Dixon Line at an all-white university, when Harvard played the University of Virginia. It also marked the Harvard football program’s first game played south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
In the build-up to the game, officials in the Virginia athletic department tried to discourage Harvard from playing Pierce, their 6’ 4” 235 lb starting left tackle. In a conversation with sports historian George Sullivan in 1997, Harvard end/punter Wally Flynn recalled, “Virginia officials called Bill Bingham (Harvard Athletic Director) and said they were looking forward to our visit, but not to bring the black boy. Bill exploded and told them Harvard most certainly was bringing Chester Pierce, and that he would be coming along for more than the ride. Chet would be starting, just as he had for most of our games dating back to 1944. Virginia had no excuses for when the game was contracted a year or so earlier, they knew Harvard had a Black starter.”
In addition, three months prior to the game, several Harvard seniors had written to their Virginia counterparts to request that the game be played without incident. In response, the Virginia players voted unanimously to play Harvard and wrote that they had no problem facing an African-American player.
Upon their arrival in Charlottesville, the Harvard team was informed the team would be housed in a hotel with Pierce placed in a mansion directly behind the hotel. Harvard head coach Dick Harlow responded by placing all 22 of his starters in the mansion with Pierce, and also had his entire team enter the hotel dining room through the rear entrance to which Pierce had been directed.
Harvard’s game day reception at Scott Stadium included a welcoming party of several hundred Black fans clustered along the chain link fence by the players entrance. Their cheers were soon replaced by fans in the stadium waving Confederate flags and singing “Dixie.” The Harvard band soon defused what could have been a volatile scenario when they marched in a formation that first spelled “Hello” that quickly switched into the lettering of “You-All.” This was followed by their rousing rendition of, “In Old Virginia.”
Coach Harlow stood directly behind Pierce as they took the field Pierce recalled, “As we went out, Harlow said, ‘You’re going on the field with me,’ and got on my inside, closest to the stands. I assumed it was in case any bottles or whatever were thrown at me-a very nice gesture and courageous gesture by the coach, a man in poor health.”
The game itself was a competitive disaster for Harvard, as they lost by a score of 47-0.
However, in the same year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Chester Pierce and the athletic officials at both Harvard and the University of Virginia made their own progressive statement.
During his career as prominent psychiatrist, Pierce taught at Harvard Medical School for three decades, consulted on the creation of “Sesame Street” and coined the term “microaggression.” He was also active in Civil Rights, and once protested alongside Charlton Heston.
In remarks given at a Harvard luncheon a half century later Pierce remarked, “It was no big deal and took no courage by me. “Historically, the time was right, among all of America’s changes after World War II, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. That it happened then and there was a tribute to Harvard.”
