beagle wrote:I believe he was one of the main people that tried to stop MSU from playing the (integrated) Loyola-Chicago team in basketball.
Could be true for all I know. There's not much information available online about the man. Unlike Gum Job Eagle, I'd avoid running him down online without a source, if at all.
Whether Roberts' views on the integration of basketball or anything else invalidate him as a person who can have things named after him depends on your philosophy.
Supposedly Roberts led the push to make USM a full university, as opposed to a college. If you look at things from a utilitarian perspective, that helped a whole lot of black people who couldn't afford to move up to Nowhere, North Mississippi to get an education.
The other thing I'd throw out there is that Mississippi to this day voluntarily segregates itself, and that's true of both skin colors.
It's hard forcing integration on people that just don't seem to want it.
Last edited by AndreWhere (2018-01-09 19:06:03)
Bring back Reed V. "Pie" TurkPalmer Eustachy.