Game's impact on race relations resonates 50 years later

In 1965, the first integrated high school basketball game in the South was considered a significant step forward in terms of racial harmony.

The game between Father Ryan and Pearl was said to be the beginning of change and a victory for civil rights.

Yet 50 years later, several protests ignited by racial tensions in America took place in downtown Nashville not far from the very place where the game was played at Municipal Auditorium.

The protests were in response to a grand jury decision not to prosecute a police officer who shot and killed Ferguson, Mo., resident Michael Brown, along with a similar decision in New York not to indict officers in the choke-hold death of Eric Garner.

To some, it might seem that race relations aren't much better today than they were back then. But the players who participated in the historic game strongly disagree.

Many of them were together again Monday night at Municipal Auditorium, where the girls and boys basketball teams at Father Ryan and Pearl-Cohn played as a part of the game's anniversary celebration.

While each acknowledged further improvement is still needed in race relations locally and nationally, the former players are determined not to allow the progress that has been made to be minimized.

"The problems we're facing today and what we faced back then are totally different," said Walter Fisher, who played for Pearl. "The Ferguson situation is something that's dealing with racial profiling of black teenagers. At the time when we played, what was so special about that night was that maybe people were worried that something might happen, but it didn't. That loomed large for Nashville in both the black and white communities. Everybody was on their best behavior; if there was anything that was going to happen, it wasn't going to happen from the white sector and it wasn't going to happen from the black sector."

Tommy Lynch, who played for Father Ryan and is now the director of the Metro Parks and Recreation Department, said it is important to remember the social inequity that existed in the early 1960s in order to appreciate the progress that has taken place.

"You're talking about a time when people's basic rights were denied," Lynch said. "At that time people couldn't ride buses or had to sit in the back, they couldn't go to places to eat. I worked for the parks department, and swimming pools were closed to them. Basic human dignity is a right that we all have."

An athletic event was a good starting point for there to be more interaction between the two races.

"Sports have really impacted this country," Lynch said. "From Jackie Robinson to (former Pearl and Vanderbilt basketball standout) Perry Wallace to (former Father Ryan and Middle Tennessee State basketball standout) Willie Brown; these guys changed the attitudes of people because people got to know each other. Sports is kind of the equalizer. You get out there in basketball, like we did, put your shorts on and your shirt on and have at it. Then you work together, coexist and eventually realize that we all have more things in common than we realized before."

Wallace, who went on to become the first African-American to play basketball in the SEC, is adamant about stressing how race relations have improved in the last five decades.

"People ought to be careful before they give up on America. If that sounds patriotic, I don't care. I saw how far we had to go. I saw it firsthand and so I know just how far we have come," said Wallace, who is now a professor of law at American University.

Lyn Dempsey, who played for Father Ryan, spent much of the historic game on the bench before coming in late to replace Pat Sanders, who had fouled out. It was Dempsey who lifted Ryan to a 52-51 victory by scoring the winning basket over the outstretched arms of Wallace as time expired.

Dempsey and some of his former teammates spent much of Monday reminiscing with the players from Pearl. Today's racial issues were part of their conversation.

"It's much better today, obviously," Dempsey said. "Some of us from Father Ryan and Pearl had no clue as far as what was actually going on with the protests and everything else at that time and just how bad it was. We were just a bunch of kids playing a big basketball game. We had no clue of the impact. And even 10 years later we had no clue; everybody went to school, went into the service, fought in the Vietnam War, whatever the case might have been. I don't think any of us really knew how important it was until many years later. I'm just glad to have been a part of something that was so special and something that changed things."

Cornelius Ridley, who was Pearl's coach at the time, was inducted into the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1991. He died in 2004, but his wife, Carolyn, attended the reunion Monday.

"We've come a long way, especially in the Middle Tennessee area," Carolyn Ridley said. "We were segregated here, but there was a different kind of feel to it here than in other places in the South because of the fact that this was a city that loved education and was progressive. So when we finally did get to the point where we said, 'OK, we have to embrace (desegregation),' it happened. Sadly to say, we still have some of the old-time (thinking) that can't get rid of it. But Nashville as a whole has done well."

The former players were introduced between the girls and boys games Monday. Former Metro police chief Joe Casey, who served as an official in the 1965 game, conducted the ceremonial tip-off. Pearl-Cohn defeated Father Ryan in the boys game 50-25 and the Father Ryan girls won 38-25.

Luke Dixon, a senior at Father Ryan, was caught off guard when he saw the game against Pearl-Cohn scheduled.

"I saw that we were playing Pearl-Cohn and I got excited about that, and then I saw that we were playing them at Municipal Auditorium, and that really got my attention," Dixon said. "After that our athletics director (Pat Lawson) told us why we were playing there and what the game meant, and it made me really appreciate being a part of it. It was a really important game in Nashville's history."

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 and on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.