"I didn't know at the time the monumental event, really, that was going on and I'm sure glad that we're a long way from that. I am,” Jones said. “And that would remind me just to continue doing everything we can to not have those kinds of things happen."
Little Rock was at the center of the civil rights movement at the time, and Arkansas schools were desegregated soon after the photo of Jones was taken.AP Photo | William P. Straeter Defiant white students at Arkansas' North Little Rock High School block the doors of the school, denying access to six Black students enrolled in the school on Sept. 9, 1957. Moments later the Black students were shoved down a flight of stairs and onto the sidewalk, where city police broke up the altercation.
"Nobody there had any idea, frankly, what was going to take place. You didn't have all the last 70 years of reference and all the things that were going ,” he said.Jones acknowledges in his interview that racial change in the NFL's coaching ranks has come slowly but adds, when it comes to diversity, he wants to be the"first in line."
At the time the photo was taken, Jones said he wasn’t trying to stop the Black students from entering the high school. He said he was only worried he would get in trouble with his football coach who had warned players not to be there.
1957 🙄🙄🙄
No mention of Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, eulogized by Joe Biden at his funeral …
And it was 60 years ago, move on...