John Griffin and Phil White Discuss The Black 14

The upcoming panel will touch on race, religion, and free speech Photo by University of Wyoming from 1969 This upcoming Wednesday, a panel entitled “John Griffin & Phil White on the Black 14: Race, Religion, and Free Speech in Wyoming Football” will be held on the University of Wyoming campus about the Black 14. The lead speakers of the panel include John Griffin, a member of the Black 14, and Phil White, a leading scholar of the Black 14. On Oct. 17, 1969, 14 Black football players were immediately kicked off the University of Wyoming’s football team after telling then-coach Lloyd Eaton of their intent to wear black armbands in protest of during an upcoming game. They came to be known as “The Black 14.” The armbands were meant to show support to an ongoing BYU student protest of an LDS tenet (that wouldn’t be abolished until 1978) banning black men and women from temple ordinances or ordination within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

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