Paul Brown's Great Legacy of Equality

Vintage Football Card Gallery
1952 Bowman Small

Black Buzz Sports News Service

The Special Collection of The

Ronald B. Saunders' Papers

The Archives of The National Black

Political Caucus
Pittsburgh, PA
July 31, 2011


                                                                                      

The below editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on September 4, 1991 and is part of the Special Collection of The Ronald B. Saunders' Papers.


                          Paul Brown's Great Legacy of Equality

Your editorial on Coach Paul Brown (" Football's Great Innovator," Aug 7) was commendable.
Mr. Brown should also be remembered as one of the individuals who gave Black players the opportunity to compete with their White counterparts when the practice of equal opportunity was not in vogue.
His utilization of Black athletes on his Great Lakes Naval Squad at Ohio State University and with the Cleveland Browns was widely criticized at the time but Coach Brown persevered.
As a Black youngster growing up in the Hill District in the late 40's and early 50's, I couldn't identify with the Steelers who had an absence of Black players.
But the Browns had such outstanding Black players as Marion Motley, other Hall of Famers, Len Ford, Bill Willis and great Hall of Fame punter in Horace Gillom.
Mr. Brown also had the cream of the crop in White players such as Otto Graham, Dub Jones, Ken Carpenter, Dante Lavelli, Max Speedie, Lou "The Toe" Groza, Frank Gatski, Warren Lahr, Alex Agase, Lou Rymkus, Billy Reynolds, Big Bob Gain, George Ratterman, Carl Tassef, Don Shula, Cliff Lewis, Rex Bumgardner, Mike Phelps, Tony Adamle, Tommy James, Bill Priatko, Weldon Humble, Doug Atkins, Chubby Grigg, John Sandusky, Abe Gibron, George Young, Ray Renfro, Carlton Massey, Mike McCormack, Tom Catlin,  Don Paul, Tommy W. Thompson, Ken Gorgal, Walt Michaels, Gene Hickerson, and of course, Chuck Noll.
Coach Brown was truly a giant and our deepest and most sincere sympathy is extended to the Brown family, the Bengal Organization, the Cleveland Browns and to all the citizens of the Buckeye State.

                                                               Ronald B. Saunders, Chairman
                                                               The National Black Political Caucus
                                                               Pittsburgh, PA.


*Black Buzz notes that Coach Paul Brown drafted the greatest running back in pro football history in Jimmy Brown and he also drafted the last Big Ten Running Back to make it into Canton, Ohio in the great Bobby Mitchell of Illinois.
Paul Brown had an excellent eye for talent. He drafted a great local talent in Bert Rechichar, who would later get traded to the Baltimore Colts where he would kick the longest field goal in NFL history until Tom Dempsey of the Saints would break Bert's record breaking 56 yard field goal. Bert Rechichar was a very good safety, cornerback for the Colts and was an outstanding running back with the Tennessee Volunteers in College.

Paul Brown was the greatest coach in the history of Pro-football. When the Browns entered the NFL in 1950, they had won four straight titles in the rough and tumble All American Football Conference.
The top brass in the NFL thought the All-American Conference was a soft minor league, so they matched the Browns with the world champion Eagles in the Browns first NFL game.
Paul Brown's team, the Cleveland Browns beat the Eagles butt 35-10, and the Eagles coach stated the only thing that the Browns could do was pass.
So in the rematch game between the Browns and the Eagles, the Browns didn't throw one pass the whole game as they beat the Champion Eagles 13-7 with a steady diet of rushing with the big bruising Marion Motley, Rex Bumgardner, Dub Jones and the great Otto Graham.

Paul Brown invented the West Coast passing game. Who do you think  the great Bill Walsh and Sid Gillman learned that West Coast passing offense from?  They didn't call Brown's passing game "The West Coast Passing Offense" but it had exactly the same patterns run by Lavelli, Speedie and Dub Jones.
In the Brown's first year in the NFL, they only lost two games and both of them were to the great Giants of Steve Owens.  Because the Browns and the Giants had the same record, they met for the tie breaking game in which the winner would advance to the NFL Championship. Paul Brown figured out how to beat Steve Owens' "umbrella" defense and the Browns won their first play-off game
8-3 in the NFL as they advanced to the championship game. The Browns beat the Rams on a field goal by Lou "The Toe" Groza to capture their first NFL crown and Paul Brown's fifth straight Pro-Football Championship, which has  never been equalled to date.

From 1946-1955, the Cleveland Browns were the greatest and one of the best teams in pro-football history.  No coach in the history of pro-football has appeared in 10 straight championship games except for the legendary greatest of greats, Paul Brown. Coach Brown's record in those championship games is seven wins and three losses (7-3 ). Paul Brown's record in the All American Conference was 47 wins, 4 losses and 3 ties and his Browns also had a perfect season before the Dolphins' perfect season in 1972.
I repeat, in the Cleveland Browns' first 10 years of playing pro-football, they went to the Championship game 10 times straight, going 7-3 in those title games.


                                 The Paul Brown School of Coaching


Paul Brown has the largest coaching tree in NFL history with players who played or coached for him and were thus influenced by him in such names as Lou Saban, Don Shula, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, Webb Eubank, Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, Mike McCormack, Mike Tomlin, Blanton Collier, Abe Gibron, Sid Gillman, Otto Graham, Ara Parseghian, Bruce Coslett, Sam Wyche, Dennis Green, Mike Holgrem, Mike Shanahan, Don McCafferty, George Seifert, Brian Billick, Jon Gruden and hundreds of other successful coaches.
How many Super Bowls did Shula, Noll, Walsh, Dungy, Webb Eubank, Don McCafferty and George Siefert win?
You could see a lot of Paul Brown in the coaching style  and philosophy of the great Chuck Noll and Don Shula.

Coach Paul Brown was light years ahead of his time.  Paul Brown's QB's had radios in their helmets where Coach Brown would radio in the plays with a transmitter from above or on the field of play.  He also used the messenger guard system with Chuck Noll, John Wooten, Gene Hickerson, Weldon Humble, Ulinski and other guards to bring in plays to Otto Graham.
Paul Brown is given credit for inventing the "draw play" with big fullback Marion Motley, who was also a great pass receiver and linebacker.
Otto Graham is the only Quarterback in NFL history to appear as the starting QB in ten straight championship games.  I rate Otto Graham in the top five of the greatest Quarterbacks in NFL history.
No coach in the history of the game of pro-football could teach fundamentals/techniques as Paul Brown who was a Master at his craft.
As the elder statesman in the NFL, Paul Brown still led the Bengals to three play-off appearances, and as president/owner of the Bengals, his team appeared in two Super Bowls.
Just a little history---In 1930, Brown qualified for a Rhodes Scholarship.  In 1942, Paul Brown won the NCAA National Championship Football Title with the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Coach Brown integrated his team with Black players in the All American Football Conference before major league baseball was integrated with Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.  No court of law or commission, agency, pressure group had to tell or compel Coach Brown to integrate his team with Black players.  Coach Brown was a decent human being with a good heart. 
No coach in the history of pro-football comes remotely close to the accomplishments of Paul Brown.
* My former boss, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, Homer S. Floyd of Zanesville, Ohio, who is now retired, once had a tryout with the Cleveland Browns during the Jim Brown era.  Mr. Floyd told me that even though he didn't make the Browns that Paul Brown was a total class act both on and off the field.

                                            VINTAGE FOOTBALL CARD GALLERY                                            1952 Bowman Small

Freedmen's Bureau

Black Buzz News Service
Washington, D.C.
July 30, 2011

Who Will Intervene on behalf of Black America?

Black Buzz News Service
College Park, MD
July 29, 2011

By: Solomon Comissiong

American led military operations rage on from Afghanistan to Libya, and many places between. US bombs have indiscriminately destroyed the dwellings of civilians, while ripping the life away from countless men, women and children. The US military machine is a monster that devours the lives of innocent civilians without remorse or regret. Global conquest, imperialism, and securing “strategic interests” for the corporations that influence the American political landscape, are among the real reasons this serial killer roams the planet.

Much of the world sees the US military for what it really is—a monster, while tens of millions of obedient Americans remain oblivious to these facts. Americans are continually programmed to serve as cheerleaders for an out of control “Frankenstein” that has perfected the art of murdering, maiming, and massacring. War and killing are glorified throughout America, from video games to the big screen. The US propaganda machine is not only effective; it is a master of creating lies to support its global endgame.

War for “humanitarian reasons” is a prominent lie within the Pentagon’s arsenal. This lie is routinely fed to the sycophantic corporate media. The lies run throughout their digestive system in the same manner harmful fast food does within the intestines of millions of Americans. The capital driven media ultimately defecates poisonous lies upon the unsuspecting collective consciousness of innumerable Americans. Americans rarely question the reasons why “their country” goes to war, until it is usually much too late. The invasion of Iraq is a prime example of this— a war built upon mountains of lies. Most Americans were so bloodthirsty for vengeance after 9/11; they cared little about who their government said was responsible—they wanted death.

Most Americans did not even think twice about the hundreds of thousands of potential civilian murders that the US military would ultimately cause —the hypocritical actions were nowhere within their radar. The fact that roughly the same numbers of innocent civilians were killed in the US’s initial strike of Afghanistan, alone, as were killed on 9/11, meant nothing to most Americans—-nor was it anywhere within their realm of consciousness. Innocent civilians being killed is something that many Americans seldom think of when their country decides to bomb another nation, especially when the nation is replete with people of color. Americans think what the media and their government tell them to think, which is why US involved wars are not protested by the tens of millions. When the wars begin to drain the economic resources from US taxpayers, amoral politicians (and their constituents) use that as a reason to stop their country’s death campaign—rarely do they use the reason that wars are killing innocent civilians. The killing of innocent civilians should always be the number one reason these wars should stop, and never start in the first place.

In a country so dependent on the exploitative system of capitalism; why would we think these politicians might be motivated to do the right thing—if money is not factored in? However, let’s just say, for one moment, that the bombing of countries, like Libya, was for so-called humanitarian reasons (which it wasn’t). And let’s say we believed the US government’s lie that they began the war in Libya to save its citizens from being killed by their own government. If that lie were actually true, then any critical thinker should ask the question, “but who will intervene on behalf of Black people in America”?

The previous question is a most legitimate query given the fact that Black/African people in America have been catching hell for the past 400 plus years. In 2011 Black/African people in the US continue to be gunned down by America’s state sponsored police force with regularity. America’s police shower terror upon Black and Brown communities with virtual impunity. They have even been known to murder seven year old black girls as in the case of Aiyana Stanley Jones. In 2010 this little Black/African girl was fatally shot by a Detroit police officer when he and his thug colleagues burst into her home and began shooting with reckless abandon. These things simply do not happen to little white girls in America, and if they did the punishment would be swift. Aiyana’s murderer still walks the streets, with his job intact. Who will intervene on behalf of little Black/African girls trapped within America’s stolen borders?

Police in America have grown accustomed to killing Black/African men, and subsequently getting away with it. America has a virtual laundry list of Black/African men it has systematically assassinated. Names include, but are not limited to; Sean Bell, Adolf Grimes, Timothy Stansbury, and Trey Joyner. And in cases where the evidence is overwhelming the police officers get little to no time at all.

Oscar Grant was murdered, unarmed—execution style, by an Oakland police officer. This heinous crime was caught on camera—and still the murderous cop served little more than one year of jail time. If the roles were reversed, the black man would face capital punishment. There is no justice in America for the Black/African man—none. Recently a 19 year old Black/African man was shot at least 10 times in the back by San Francisco police officers. Numerous eyewitnesses reported that he, too, was unarmed. Video of the aftermath can be seen here. Where is this young man’s justice? He was gunned down as if they were hunting wild game. To quote street poet, Monte Smith, “the darker you are, the more hunted you are”. Who and what country will intervene on behalf of Black/Men in America?

The United States reigns supreme when it comes to incarcerating Black/African people. No other country comes close. The US even incarcerates more Black people than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid. This incarceration trend has been referred to as “The New Jim Crow” by scholar-activists like Michelle Alexander, however, in reality—Jim Crow never ended. Black/African people within America are disproportionately preyed upon by the American criminal “justice” system, and therefore disproportionately incarcerated. Black/African people are seen as a commodity in America—they are a valuable labor force within the reprehensible prison industrial complex. Some call it “modern day slavery”, this author calls it “America”.

Unequal practices, predicated on race, are not restricted to incarceration in America—they can be found in almost every sector of within the empire. Black/African-Americans control 10 cents of wealth for every one dollar of wealth that a white family does. And Black/African people earn approximately 60 cents for every dollar that whites earn in the US. If these inequalities existed in a country like Libya, the US government, as well as its corporate media, would highlight this and utilize it as an additional justification for waging war on the African nation. However, within America’s manufactured borders, Black/African people languish with no end in sight. There is certainly no intervention, on their behalf, from a government that routinely says it is bringing democracy and humanitarianism to some country it is about to bomb into the Stone Age. No intervention for the millions of Black/African youth who are asked to learn within vastly separate and unequal public schools, as contrasted to their white counterparts. Who the hell will intervene on behalf of these children within this Apartheid state?

The US is a fork tongued hypocrite and global serial killer. America has mastered the art of waging war and destroying civilian lives abroad. Fredrick Douglass was spot on in 1852 when he said, “Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….”

The US has mastered its art of global destruction by practicing on the lives and communities of Black/African people within its own illegitimate borders. Torture, brutality, and murder are things we know have been done to people within US detention camps like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; however many of these crimes have historically been inflicted upon America’s people of color. Despite America’s track record of committing crimes against humanity on Black/African communities no country has charged the US or threatened to take it to the selective International Criminal Court—they seem to only wish to indict African leaders. The US deserves to be prosecuted by the real international community for its crimes against its own Black/African citizens. Where is the United Nations? Where is England, Norway, France and all the other NATO countries that are currently bombing Libya? Why aren’t they speaking out against America’s crimes against Black/African people—crimes that pale in comparison to the allegations they accused the Libyan government of as a pretext for war? Where is the damn coalition of countries demanding the US end its inhumane policies against Black/African-Americans? Who will intervene on behalf of Black America, thus demanding equality and justice for all Black/African people in America?

That justice, equality and right to self-determination that Black America needs will only come from those same people. It won’t come from the disingenuous white liberals nor will it come from the US government; it will have to come from the will of African-Americans to demand those things. The African Diaspora and Internationalist community can play a supportive and strategic role, however it will have to be Africans within America organizing, mobilizing and thus leading the way toward real freedom, justice and equality. Black people in America will have to establish their own national agenda, one that is free from the involvement of poverty pimps and frauds like the Democratic Party, and certainly not the white nationalists on the Republican side. Blacks/Africans in America will have to work in solidarity and protest for however long it takes. We must look to start and/or build upon strong political organizations whose focus has our interests as top priorities. Egos will have to be shed and a critical mass of Blacks/Africans will have to be willing to play strategic roles within this movement where consistency must be paramount. These things must be done if relief is ever to reach Black/African communities in America—there simply is no other tangible alternative. The intervention we, as Africans in America, seek—must come from our collective interests, unity, and struggle.

Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org).

Geographic Information Systems Help Scholars See History - NYTimes.com

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ENTITLEMENTS MY ASS

Black Buzz News Service
Pittsburgh, PA
July 26, 2011

The following article is written by Velma Jean Robinson, cousin to Black Buzz and niece of my father, James S. Robinson, Jr.

I have often asked, how the President, the Democrats and the media could miss pointing out the fact that, Social Security is not an entitlement.  We have paid for it.  Now the government is taxing these payments, trying to move the date for qualifying for Social Security.

Entitlements my ass, I paid cash for my Social Security Insurance!  Just because they borrowed my money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!

Congressional benefits like free health care, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days: now that's welfare; and they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements!

Someone please tell me what the Hell is wrong with all the people that run this country!

We're broke and can't help our Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.?

In recent months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile, Pakistan...home to bin Laden...literally BILLIONS of DOLLARS!

Our retired seniors living on a fixed incomes receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government gives Hundreds of Billions to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare entitlements even though most of us have been paying for them all our working lives.  And now, when its time for us to collect, the Government is running out of money.  Why did the Government borrow from our Social Security in the first place?

We have many adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.

AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without needed medication, mentally ill going without treatment, etc.

Imagine if our Government gave us the same support they give the people who hate us.

Sad, isn't it?

But 99% of people won't have the guts to forward this.

I'm part of one the 1% that Just Did.

San Francisco Police shoot and kill a 19 year old unarmed black man

Black Buzz News Service
San Francisco, CA
July 26, 2011

FinalCall.com) - A coalition of San Francisco activists, youth and religious leaders held a “No More Stolen Lives” press conference at the intersection of Third Street and Oakdale Avenue in the Bay View Hunters Point neighborhood to demand an independent, federal investigation into the fatal shooting of a young Black transit rider by city police officers.

According to reports, when two officers stopped 19-year-old Kenneth Harding asking him about paying a fare on a Municipal Railway (Muni) train, he ran away. Officers claim he fired a gun at them and in return, they shot back. But according to some witnesses, the victim had no weapon and the only shots fired came from the direction of the officers.



There was no justification for police shooting the young man approximately 10 times in the back and neck, they charge.

“We are demanding a civilian review board of the police and we are asking to stop the criminalization of Bay View. Stop making us look like thugs and criminals, and stop killing,” said Mesha Irizarry of the San Francisco chapter of Education Not Incarceration and the Idriss Stelley Foundation, which organized the July 18 press conference.

Activists and community leaders are also demanding a civilian review board of the San Francisco Police Department and want District Attorney George Gascon, a former police chief, barred from participating in any investigation of the incident, saying his participation would constitute a conflict of interest.

Ms. Irizarry said the shooting hit home and when she heard the news she relived the fatal police shooting of her own son, Idriss, about a decade ago.

“This is very, very personal to all of us here because this happens all the time but this time it was caught on tape.These kids are terrorized by the police,” Ms. Irizarry told The Final Call.

Thumbnail images of the raw video footage and videos on the internet show the young man lying face down, still, in a large pool of blood.One video shows him moving slowly in pain and at one point attempting to get up, to no avail.

Ms. Irizarry told The Final Call many Bay View residents were incensed that the media and police have released stories about Mr. Harding's past, as though it provides a justification for the fatal shooting. The issue witnesses say is the deceased was shot while he was running and the officers let him choke on his own blood, argued Ms. Irizarry.“For a transfer!All for a $2.00 transfer fare,” she said.

When the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced in February 4, 2008, the decriminalization of transit citations and that they would no longer require processing by the San Francisco Superior Court, these officers must have missed the memo, said activists.Adult fares for the Muni are $2 and there simply was no reason to shoot to kill someone for a train ride, they argued.

“My concern preliminarily is that law enforcement appears to have a shoot first policy when it comes to young Black and Brown men,” said Student Minister Christopher Muhammad of Mosque No. 26 in San Francisco.

It is hard for the community to take the circumstances surrounding the shooting, especially after the New Year's Day 2009 fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer and police overreactions, he said. Mr. Grant was lying handcuffed on a train platform when a BART officer shot him to death with the incident captured on cell phone videos. As the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said, the notion of justifiable homicide is applied whenever Black men or Black people die at the hands of law enforcement, Mr. Muhammad, who leads the city's Nation of Islam mosque, said.

Mr. Muhammad told The Final Call he is disturbed by apparent newspaper andpolice attempts to spin facts of the incident and demonize Mr. Harding by drumming up his past criminal record.But that is a routine tactic used to sway public opinion to justify police actions, he said.

People are increasingly angry about police misconduct and it is a volatile period, which calls for great responsibility, Mr. Muhammad continued.He said he recently learned that in Richmond, Calif., police were involved in distributing guns to teenagers and in Contra Costa County,Calif., law enforcement officers were involved in taking confiscated drugs and distributing them among youth. These officers were involved in criminal behavior so the police department and the media should refrain from demonizing anybody, he said.

“So this kind of rationale and justification gives cover for police overreaction and alleged misconduct,” said Mr. Muhammad. “When the wise and intelligent thing to do is to follow the facts—and just like the police department asks the community for calm and not rush to judgment—while the matter is being investigated. When there's an officer involved in inappropriate behavior, the police department should show the same restraint with young men from the community when they are the victims of what could be potentially considered misconduct from law enforcement.”

Ronald B. Saunders Chairman, of the National Black Political Caucus Receives A Copy Of a Letter from Bernard J. Mullin Senior Vice President Business Operations for the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club.

Black Buzz News Service
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The Archives of the National Black
Political Caucus
Pittsburgh, PA
July 12, 2011
BBNS

Members of the National Black Political Caucus met with the chairman and owners of the Pittsburgh Pirate Baseball club relative to getting the Pirates to hire and to promote African Americans and to contract with more African American and female vendors with said ballclub. This meeting occurred on July 7, 1987 and Ronald B. Saunders, chairman of the Caucus, headed up the national delegation of Caucus members. 
*Let it be noted that Ronald B. Saunders once had a developmental tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1958 at the old Pullman Park in Butler PA, which was the former home of a New York Yankee farm team that once played in the same ball park.  Yankee great hurler White Ford once pitched for the Yankee farm team in Butler PA.
                                                                  

PITTSBURGH BASEBALL CLUB (PIRATES) phone 412-323-5000

                                                                 July 22, 1987


Mr. John D. Holley
315 Belleview Blvd.
Steubenville, OH, 43952

Dear Mr. Holley:

         Your resume was recently given to us by members of the National Black Political Caucus for consideration of openings that we have.
       The only opening that we currently have is for Vice President of Public Relations. The emphasis that we are looking for in that position is 60% managerial experience, managing a staff of five persons; print and electronic media relations; community relations; and experience in broadcast industry, particularly in reference to sponsorships and local television network development.
   I have passed your resume along with to Jim Meston, who is acting in a personnel screening capacity for the Pirates for this position. He will be contacting you in the near future to explore your background in relationship to the skills that we are looking for.
 Thank you very much for your interest in the Pittsburgh Pirates.
                                                               
                                                            Sincerely,

                                                           Bernard J. Mullin
                                                           Senior Vice President
                                                          Business Operations

BJM/km

cc: Ron Saunders ( NBPC )