Last week, I wished Jalen Hurts success and recounted his struggle to get to his current position as the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, the team with the best record this year in the National Football League (NFL).
As you may recall, Hurts lost his starting position with the Alabama Crimson Tide, but stayed on for a year to work on his skills and learn the ins and outs of being an NFL quarterback, eventually going to Oklahoma to learn more. Selected in the second round (number 53 overall), Hurts has become a franchise quarterback and a legitimate MVP candidate.
For the first time in history, the Super Bowl will be played between teams led by black quarterbacks. The Eagles, led by Hurts, will face the Kansas City Chiefs, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes overcame a serious ankle injury and led his team to a last-minute victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the team that defeated the Chiefs last year for the AFC Championship.
Mahomes set records as quarterback for Texas Tech in college, then went on to be drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft. He served as a backup quarterback in his first NFL year, then came back to win an AFC Championship, winning the Super Bowl in 2020. Along the way, he set new NFL records.
Do today’s NFL players like Hurts and Mahomes understand the huge price paid by blacks who came before them? Blacks like Frederick Douglass, who fought against racial hatred and the besmirchment of black men as nonthinkers?
Douglass began working actively in the 1840s to abolish slavery in the United States and to have all Americans treated equally regardless of one’s race. He never gave up. Douglass spoke for “we the people,” he noted in an 1860 speech. “[N]ot we the white people, not even we the citizens, not we the privileged class, not we the high, not we the low, but we the people; not we the horses, sheep, and swine, and wheel-barrows, but we the people, we the human inhabitants.”
Douglass worked constantly toward his goal until slavery was abolished in 1865 by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Douglass then worked for passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, to establish that black former slaves and their descendants are equal citizens and have a right to vote..
Douglass worked against every effort of the Democrats of his day to segregate, marginalize, and build racial hatred against black men until the day he died in 1895. Unfortunately, those on the left even kept black men from competing in Major League Baseball and the NFL. Today, we still have those who follow in Douglass’ steps, thwarting the efforts of the rich elites who seek to keep us divided by race, manipulating, marginalizing, and controlling all Americans.
Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are not fighting battles with stakes as high as those Frederick Douglass fought. But with Hurts and Mahomes competing against each other, they appear to have attained one of Douglass’ important goals: that blacks should be treated with “a fair field, and no favor.”
To contact KCarl or request a speaking engagement, go to www.kcarlinc.com The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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