"The Game That Changed The South" on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

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Join us Saturday, December 13, 2014 to hear from members of the historic match that is often referred to as "the game that changed the South" between two schools, Father Ryan and Pearl Cohn, in 1965. This meeting between the powerhouses was the first ever sporting event in the South between an integrated team and an all African-American team.

Listen to players share how the game changed theirs lives as January 5, 2015 marks the  50th Anniversary of the game. The anniversary coincides with the state of unrest and mounting tensions regarding today's state of race relations in our country.  Hear how a basketball game was an ice breaker to bringing many together to watch a sporting event while the City of Nashville was at the center of protests for racial injustices.

Scheduled to appear on today's show: Walter Fisher and Tony Moorman players from Pearl, Father Ryan's Atletic Director Pat Lawson, whose father was also on the 1965 team and Pat Sanders who played for Father Ryan.

Must hear radio!

This interview promises to empower, inspire, and motivate you to live your BEST life.Tune into 760AM in the Middle Tennessee Region, on Tune In, streaming live online at UStream.TV, and on military bases on Saturdays from 9:00-10:00am CST.

More About  Game Day Events
 

·       The Nashville Sports Council and Comcast Sports Speaker Series “The Game That Changed the South Celebratory Luncheon” sponsored by McDonald’s, beginning at 11:30 a.m. at the Wildhorse Saloon.

·       An exhibit in the Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library at 3:30 p.m., which will include photographs and memorabilia from the game 50 years ago.

·       The 50^th Anniversary Game sponsored by Star Physical Therapy and McDonalds at the Municipal Auditorium. Pre-game events will begin at 5:00 p.m. Tipoff of the girls’ game will be at 6:00 p.m., with the boys’ game to follow at 7:30 p.m.

All of the game day events will be open to the public. The luncheon will feature a panel of guests including Perry Wallace, Pearl Class of 1966 and center on the 1965 team; Andrew Maraniss, author of “Strong Inside:The Story of Perry Wallace”; Jesse Porter, Father Ryan Class of 1964, who in 1963 with Willie Brown became the first African-Americans to integrate sports in the South; and Lyn Dempsey, Father Ryan Class of 1965, who made the winning shot in the game.

Members of both 1965 teams will be part of the activities, including players, coaches, and staff.  They will be introduced at the luncheon and saluted before the boys’ game.  

The 1965 game attracted more than 8,700 fans to the Auditorium—and some reports claim that 10,000 people were actually in attendance—in a match between two of the best teams in the state.  It was the largest crowd ever to see a regular season game.  Dempsey’s basket went through the hoop as the horn sounded, earning Father Ryan a 52-51 victory in a game that lived up to its billing.  Wallace, Walter Fisher and Ted McClain led the Pearl team while Father Ryan was paced by Brown, Champ Hounihan and Pat Sanders.  

To learn more about the events and to purchase tickets, visit www.fatherryan.org/pearl50.  Game tickets are also available at www.ticketmaster.com.

Ole Miss' James Meredith on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

Audio of interview can be found here.

Join Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes as we profile organizations, leaders, and volunteers who lead by example. With extraordinary acts of kindness and charitable giving that help countless lives daily, these organizations, leaders, and volunteers  embody, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

James Meredith on Graduation Day at Ole Miss

On Saturday, October 25, 2014 tune in to hear the fourth interview that focuses on the newly released book, Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South by Andrew Maraniss. Today's show will feature a conversation with decorated Air Force Veteran and the first Black to integrate Ole Miss in 1962, James Meredith. Listen to Mr. Meredith share his views on race, politics (then and now), and how the Ole Miss and Mississippi State University football teams are now game changers in the discussion of race relations not only in the South but around the world.

Hear Mr. Meredith's views on how sports can bring solutions to race relations and why he believes Ole Miss and Mississippi State University performances on the football field during the last three weeks have forever changed the state of Mississippi.

The foreword of Strong Inside is a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" t:

  “One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer.”

 Listen to the similarities between Vanderbilt's Perry Wallace, the first Black to play in the Southeastern Conference, lonely journey as a pioneer and James Meredith's historic integration of Ole Miss. You will also hear the differences in their approaches to the jeering mobs that came with their heroism and the mental stress of attending school daily under such riveting conditions.

This interview promises to empower, inspire, and motivate you to live your BEST life.Tune into 760AM in the Middle Tennessee Region, on Tune In, streaming live online at UStream.TV, and on military bases on Saturdays from 9:00-10:00am CST

 More About James Meredith:

   “The traditional practice in Mississippi has been to eliminate potential troublemakers before they have a chance to cause trouble. Far more Negroes have been lynched for having a bad or wrong attitude (by Mississippi ‘White Supremacy’ standards) than for committing a particular crime. Whenever a Negro questioned the status quo in Mississippi, he just simply disappeared.”

From James Meredith’s book, Three Years in Mississippi

Author is only one of many hats worn by the enigmatic James Meredith. Born June 25, 1933, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, Meredith is best known as the first African-American student of the University of Mississippi. Meredith served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1960, including a tour of duty in Japan. He then attended Jackson State College for two years. In the fall of 1962 Meredith risked his life when he successfully applied the laws of integration and became the first black student at the University of Mississippi, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement which sparked riots on the Oxford campus that left two people dead. 

 

In 1966 he recounted the experience in his first publication, Three Years in Mississippi. Of that book, a reviewer for Newsweek wrote, “Seldom is a piece of violent history so dispassionately dissected by one of its participants as it has been by James Meredith in this three-years-later study of his breakthrough at the University of Mississippi. Part report and part legal brief, part manifesto, part tract, it is a valuable and fascinating account.” 

Shortly after the publication of Three Years in Mississippi, Meredith conceived and organized the “Walk Against Fear,” a march from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, in a bold and selfless repudiation of the physical violence faced by African-Americans for exercising their voting rights. Meredith was shot on the march, and when he was physically able to resume the march, he did so, joined this time by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other prominent civil rights leaders of the day.

In 1968 Meredith received a LL.B. from Columbia University. Meredith’s career has included a run for a congressional seat in 1972 and, in perhaps his most controversial move yet, a stint on the staff of arch-conservative Senator Jesse Helms beginning in 1989. Meredith’s most recent publication is a historical work: Mississippi: A Volume of Eleven Books was published in 1995. 

On March 21, 1997, James Meredith presented his papers to the University of Mississippi where they are maintained by the Special Collections branch of the J.D. Williams Library. 

Credit: University of Mississippi


Photo Credits: University of Mississippi, Vanderbilt University

Perry Wallace Part 2 on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

Join Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes as we profile organizations, leaders, and volunteers who lead by example. With extraordinary acts of kindness and charitable giving that help countless lives daily, these organizations, leaders, and volunteers  embody, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Genma Holmes inspecting the arrival of Strong Inside at Vanderbilt Press Offices

On Saturday, October 18, 2014 tune in to hear the third interview that focuses on the book, Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South by Andrew Maraniss. Perry Wallace, the first African-American to play sports in the Southeastern Conference will share more about his historic decision to play basketball at Vanderbilt University and he will continue sharing with us his thoughts on the attention he has received over the years. Mr. Wallace will also share what it meant to him to receive a Charles Evans Hughes Fellowship while attending Columbia University.

We will also hear a thought provoking conversation between Andrew Maraniss and Dr. Edwin Hines, a graduate of Howard University and a Meharry trained dentist who has read Strong Inside from cover to cover several times. Listen to an engaging exchange of historical facts about Nashville, cultural differences, The Civil Rights Movement, and generational perspectives between Maraniss who has known Perry Wallace twenty-five years and Dr. Hines who arrived at Meharry around the same time Mr. Wallace was beginning his pioneering journey at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Hines and Andrew Maraniss

Dr. Hines will share with Andrew Maraniss how Strong Inside impacted him, a extremely shy young man coming of age in the tumultuous 60s, and his thoughts after hearing Mr. Wallace speak candidly about his life before and after Vanderbilt. Andrew Maraniss will share what he has learned since the earlier interviews and why his background as a journalist and researcher were vital to telling the Mr. Wallace's story. Hear Hines share why the "Perry Wallaces of the world" need more "Andrews" to bring untold stories to the forefront to empower, inspire, and motivate us to live our best life.

This series about Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Intersection of Race and Sports in the South have captured the hearts and interests of thousands from sea to shining sea. Your texts, emails, and phone calls have been encouraging. Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes has shared your responses with Mr. Wallace and Andrew Maraniss. You can purchase the book here.

Tune into 760AM in the Middle Tennessee Region, on Tune In, streaming live online at UStream.TV, and on military bases on Saturdays from 9:00-10:00am CST

Strong Inside-Book Trailer