Pulitzer-winning photographer documented racial attack on a football field
I completely missed this last Friday in my former paper, The Des Moines Register. I didn’t spot it until The New York Times posted it Wednesday.
But Don Ultang died last week at age 91. A longtime Des Moines Register photographer, he was best known as part of the two-man team that took these photos of what was essentially a racially-motivated assault in the middle of a football field in Stillwater, Oklahoma on Oct. 20, 1951:
In fact, the sequence above was filmed with a motion-picture camera by fellow Register photographer John Robinson. Ultang captured virtually the same image with his still camera:
The player getting mugged was Johnny Bright, an outstanding player for Drake University. Bright was a preseason Heisman Trophy candidate, he led the nation in rushing and, with his leadership, Drake brought a five-game winning streak to Stillwater that day.
One little problem, though: Bright happened to be black. And while this may have been no big deal in openminded and easygoing Iowa — God, how I miss that place sometimes — well, hell, this was in Texas. In 1951. You get the picture.
Bright received a number of threats designed to keep him away from playing that day against Oklahoma A&M (now called Oklahoma State and a member of the Big 12 conference). He ignored them and he paid the price.
In the first quarter, after handing off the ball to a Drake running back, an A&M player — Wilbanks Smith — went way out of his way to slam his fist into Bright’s face. The blow broke Bright’s jaw.
Never mind the fact that Bright tossed a 61-yard touchdown pass a few plays later. The pain eventually defeated him and he left the game.
The A&M player wasn’t penalized during the game. The next day, the Register splashed these alarming photos across its pages. But neither A&M nor the Missouri Valley Conference elected to discipline Smith or the A&M team.
Outraged, Drake withdrew from the MVC. They still play football at Drake. But it’s hardly the national power it once was.
As the Register’s Reid Forgrave reports:
The photographs highlighted the racial tension in the years preceding the civil rights era, made the cover of Life magazine and won Ultang and Robinson the Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest award.
The photographers “didn’t really know what they had until they got back to the photo lab,” said Paul Morrison, a Drake sports historian who witnessed the Bright incident.
But the youngest of Ultang’s three daughters said the iconic photographs won’t be what her father would want to be remembered for.
“He was a humble guy,” Joanne Ultang said. “He would say he was just in the right place at the right time.”
Later, Ultang pioneered the use of aerial photography. Read more about that in his New York Times obit. Find his Des Moines Register obit here.
