What Goes Around

 

image from Wikipedia

Because I am a big fan of karma, as my modest contribution to Black History Month I would like to share a story I ran across earlier this week.

It seems that Marvin Griffin, the Governor of Georgia from 1955-59, was so segregationist that he demanded Georgia Tech not play in the 1956 Sugar Bowl - because the other team had an African-American wide receiver.  He further stipulated that no Georgia player or coach should ever, ever play a game against an integrated team, and also never agree to play in a stadium where black fans were allowed to attend.  In his words,

The South stands at Armageddon.  The battle is joined.  We cannot make the slightest concession to the enemy in this dark and lamentable hour of struggle.  There is no more difference in compromising integrity of race on the playing field than in doing so in the classrooms.  One break in the dike and the relentless enemy will rush in and destroy us.

Long story short, the Board of Regents and the president of Georgia Tech* told him to pound sand.  Georgia Tech went to the Sugar Bowl (and won, 7-0).

Fast forward two years to a terrible coal mining disaster in the town of Spring Hill, Nova Scotia.  75 miners died. Most of the 99 survivors were quickly dug out, but seven remained trapped 4,000 feet underground for another nine days.  One of the trapped miners, a man named Maurice Ruddick, emerged as the hero of the tragedy - he encouraged the others, kept their spirits up with his singing, and refused to let them despair.  The mother of one of the miners later declared "If it wasn't for Maurice, they'd all have been dead."   Spring Hill was the first incident of its kind to get world-wide, round-the-clock TV coverage.  It was a major media event. Maurice Ruddick was named Canada's Man of the Year.

This inspired Gov Griffin to pull off a PR coup, as he saw it, and he invited the rescued miners and their families to an all-inclusive, week-long vacation at the Jekyll Island luxury resort.

At which point someone broke it to Gov Griffin that Maurice Ruddick was black.

*Dr Van Leer, a former army engineer, and WWI and WWII vet, was already on thin ice because he had allowed the first women to enroll at Georgia Tech in 1952.