An old photo recently resurfaced this week showing a 14-year-old Jerry Jones in a crowd of white students attempting to deny access to six Black students at North Little Rock High School. That event occured just weeks before the Little Rock Nine integrated Little Rock Central High School less than five miles away in what turned out to be one of the biggest moments of the civil rights movement.
Jones has acknowledged that it is him in the photograph, but he says he did not participate in protesting the integration and was simply looking on with curiosity. He also said that he didn’t realize at the time how significant a moment it was.
“I don’t know that I or anybody anticipated or had a background of knowing … what was involved,” Jones, now 80, said via Daily Mail. “It was more a curious thing.”
The photo was published as part of a Washington Post article detailing Jones’ shortcomings with respect to racial equality in the NFL, titled “Jerry Jones helped transform the NFL, except when it comes to race.”
Former ESPN host Jemele Hill weighed in on the photo with a fiery statement about Jones and other owners like him.
“Guessing Jerry Jones isn’t the only NFL owner who has something like this in his past. The wild part is the expectation that Black people are just supposed to naively trust that white people who were once eager participants in the dark parts of history magically have evolved,” she wrote.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
Jones graduated from North Little Rock in 1960.
In the meantime, his Dallas Cowboys team is 7-3 and getting ready for a mega matchup against the New York Giants on Thanksgiving. A victory would give them sole possession of second place in the NFC East and put them one step closer to tracking down the 9-1 Philadelphia Eagles.
From top to bottom, this Cowboys team has the tools to make a serious run in the postseason and possibly make it to the NFC Championship game as well as the Super Bowl, which would be a first since the mid 90s.
