Bobby Grier (born 1933) was the first African American football player to break the color barrier of the United States collegiate Sugar Bowl game, in 1956, which is held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Much controversy preceded the 1956 Sugar Bowl, where Bobby Grier's Pitt Panthers would meet the Yellow Jackets from Georgia Tech. There was controversy over whether Grier(fb/lb) should be allowed to play, and whether Georgia Tech would participate in the contest.

Georgia Governor, Marvin Griffin, was very publicly opposed to racial integration. A measure for the tenor of this time period is the well known case of Emmett Till being subjected to a lynching in Mississippi, which occurred the previous summer to the 1956 game. Additionally, within thirty days prior, Rosa Parks ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott, where she, in protest, refused to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama transit bus.

A large contingent from the New Orleans community, as well as many related to Georgia Tech, openly fought to bar either Grier, Pitt, or the Yellow Jacket team from the game. Students and football players from the Atlanta based school, civil rights leaders from multiple locales, as well as a large number of the Pitt community, however, succeeded in seeing Grier take to the gridiron that January day.

In anticipation of Grier's presence against Georgia Tech, Georgia governor Marvin Griffin, in December 1955, publicly sent a telegram to his state's Board Of Regents imploring that teams from Georgia not engage in racially integrated events which had blacks either as participants or in the stands.

Georgia Tech won the game 7-0. The margin of victory mostly resulted from a disputed first quarter pass interference penalty which was called on Grier. Photographic evidence later strongly indicated the referee's call was incorrect.

The irony of the bad call is that it was made by referee Rusty Coles, from the Pittsburgh area, who had no objective in making the wrong call, but simply made a mistake, which he admitted after seeing the game films.

Grier's participation in the 1956 Sugar Bowl, as well as the support he received from various communities, is seen by some experts as a milestone in American race relations.

Amazing story... Thanks for sharing

In every account (before this one), I have read of the game, they mention the egregious call but the accounts never mentioned the region from where the referee hailed from. I always wondered if the omission had an agenda behind it because the referee didn't come from the South.