🏈 Keith Dunnavant Interview/Three Days At Foster Review

[JoshB]

I had a chance to get an early screening of "3 Days At Foster" as well as have a one-on-one interview with the man behind the film, Keith Dunnavant. Ill post both here.

Sports author Keith Dunnavant has released his new film, Three Days At Foster on streaming video. “Three Days” chronicles the long, hard journey to end segregation in athletics in the state of Alabama, most notably at the University of Alabama.
Many of the stories told in “Three Days” are little known and have unfortunately been lost to history, until now.
BamaHammer staff writer Josh Boutwell had a chance to speak to Dunnavant, author of The Missing Ring: How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football’s Most Elusive Prize about these amazing stories, and was given a screening of the film, which is available for streaming online Monday.
JOSH BOUTWELL: What is the story you’re trying to get across with this film?
KEITH DUNNAVANT: Three Days at Foster reflects my point of view that the athletes who shattered the color barrier at the University of Alabama – including the unknown Bama football walk-ons of 1967 – deserve to be recognized as civil rights pioneers. They weren’t just gifted athletes. They were brave young men who attacked and ultimately destroyed the last bastion of segregation in the state. Even in George Wallace’s Alabama, even as the state was deeply divided by the explosive matter of race, there was a force more powerful than hate ready to be tapped. Alabama football played a significant role in healing the festering wounds of the Sixties – helping us as a culture see beyond black and white. And contrary to popular belief, Sam Cunningham did not integrate Bama football (the long standing myth about the 1970 Bama-USC game). It was an evolutionary process, and with Wilbur Jackson already on the roster when USC routed the Tide in 1970, it was only a matter of time before the last step was achieved.
JB: When will it be released and how can the readers see it?
KD: The world is changing, so we are releasing this film in a cutting-edge way that makes it easily accessible by Alabama fans everywhere. Starting Aug. 26, Three Days at Foster will be available on demand through our website for $4.95. No other historical sports film has been released this way, so we’re excited about breaking new ground.
JB: Who are some of the people that were involved in this project?
KD: Wilbur Jackson, the Jackie Robinson of Alabama football. Doc Rone, Arthur Dunning and Andrew Pernell, who walked onto the Bama football team in the spring of 1967. Danny Treadwell, who integrated the state (high school) basketball tournament at Foster, just 33 months after Wallace made his infamous stand. Also a long list of coaches, teammates, journalists and historians. A total of 42 people appear in the film, including Pat Dye, C.M. Netwon, Bama Magazine’s Kirk McNair.

JB: Tell me about the team you assembled to produce this film.
KD: I was blessed to have an outstanding team to bring this story to life: Director of photography/editor Jonathan W. Hickman and Editor Joe Beamon, as well as design consultant Maggie Boudreaux Hickman. I can’t say enough about their skill and dedication. They put in incredible hours under significant pressure to get the film completed on time, on a small budget. I am so very proud of the work they did on this film – the meticulous detail touches and the technical savvy required to bring the story to the screen in the best possible light. They shared my passion for the story. They knew we were doing something that was significant, something that mattered, and they dug deep, day after day.
JB: Your book The Missing Ring tells the story of the 1966 Alabama football team, which may have been robbed of a third straight national championship due to Alabama still being segregated. Now with “Three Days” you tell the other side of Alabama history in that sense with its integration. What compelled you to tell these stories?
KD: The same impulse, I suppose. As a historian, I enjoy digging deep to find compelling human drama surrounded by some epic tale. The Missing Ring was a story about the greatest injustice in college football history – Alabama finishing perfect but being denied that elusive third straight national championship – but it was also about the surging ambition of young men like Ray Perkins, Jerry Duncan and Kenny Stabler against the backdrop of a time and place on the brink. By the same token, Three Days at Foster is a story about the complicated evolution toward the integration of Alabama sports, but it also contains, and is given texture by, narrative detail such as Wilbur Jackson’s relationship with his father.
JB: What do you say to the people that portray Bear Bryant as someone who simply didn’t want to integrate Alabama, rather than the man that seemed to have been looking for the way to do so for quite some time?
KD: Bryant was in difficult position. He was a giant figure, but segregation, personified by George Wallace’s defiance at Foster and elsewhere, was a powerful cultural force that wasn’t going to die quickly. Clearly, he wanted to integrate much sooner than he did. It’s easy for us to speculate now, from the security of the 21st century, the whys and hows involved in his decision-making process, but what if he had acted sooner and something awful had happened? Could he have done it sooner? Absolutely. We can all look back and say the barrier should have been shattered much sooner. That’s a no-brainer. But would sooner have been too soon in terms of the culture? Impossible to say. For reasons that we can debate, in the mid-1960s, he believed the time wasn’t right for black scholarship athletes. By ’69, he thought the time was right and so he signed Wilbur Jackson, who turned out to be a transcendent figure. In terms of race, Bryant became the Anti-Wallace, and the state of Alabama emerged as a better place because of the way he integrated his program and the example that he represented.
JB: Why was John Mitchell, Alabama’s first black All American, not a part of “Three Days?”
KD: Unfortunately, John Mitchell could not make time for us when we were filming last fall.
*NOTE: Mitchell is currently defensive line coach and assistant head coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
JB: If and when will “Three Days” be released on DVD?
KD: October.
JB: What would you say you learned most from doing this documentary and having this experience?
KD: As a journalist, I want to keep stretching myself creatively, and I’m still finding my voice as a filmmaker, so Three Days at Foster was an enormous challenge for me as a storyteller on several different levels. It’s different than a book, and yet, in some ways, it’s similar. The trick is finding the best of both worlds. Of course, I also learned so much from the characters in the film while trying to get inside their heads – trying to understand what it must have been like all those years ago, in a very different world, having the determination and the courage to challenge the system.
JB: Why are the stories in this documentary important for the public to know and why do you think some of these incredible stories have been lost to history?
KD: I think it’s always important to know your history. The characters in this film represent who we were and who we became. It’s hard to say why these figures are not better known, but it is my hope that Three Days at Foster will promote a greater understanding of that critical collision between race, sports and culture that fundamentally altered the way we think about black and white.
JB: Let everyone where they can find you and the documentary online.
KD: www.threedaysatfoster.com or visit us on Facebook.

http://bamahammer.com/2013/08/26/keith-dunnavant-talks-about-new-documentary-three-days-at-foster/

 

[JoshB]

On June 11, 1963, Alabama governor George Wallace stood in front of the Foster Auditorium door attempting to block the first African-American students from registering for classes at The University of Alabama. His attempt failed, and less than three years later basketball player Danny Treadwell became the first black player to ever play in the Alabama State Basketball Tournament, and he did so inside that same Foster Auditorium.
In the new film Three Days at Foster author Keith Dunnavant tells the powerful and moving stories of the integration of athletics in the state of Alabama at both the high school and college levels.

The film, which is available streaming online beginning Monday, focuses on Treadwell, along with the first black basketball player at the University of Alabama and the first black players for the legendary Bear Bryant’s Alabama football teams. Some of these stories are more well known – Bear Bryant’s first black scholarship players Wilbur Jackson and John Mitchell – while others like Treadwell’s story and the stories of the first black players to try out for Alabama’s football team, are more obscure.
“Three Days” tells the story of Bear Bryant, then athletic director as well as head football coach, hiring little-known basketball coach CM Newton to coach the men’s basketball team. Newton was responsible for recruiting and signing Alabama’s first black basketball player, Wendell Hudson.

Newton described Hudson as the perfect person to be the first black athlete at Alabama, because of his integrity and his ability to not let things get to him or lash out.
“Three Days” dispels the myth that it was the famed game between USC and Alabama in 1970 that ended segregation among Alabama’s football team. The film instead notes that Alabama student Dock Rone decided to ask Bear Bryant if he could try out for the team. Rone said that he wasn’t trying to make a statement, but rather simply wanted to play football. After his bold move, three other black students joined him in trying out for the team.

The film recounts the struggles those players, especially Rone, went through in trying to break the color barrier before future All-SEC halfback Wilbur Jackson and All-American defensive end John Mitchell shattered that barrier.

Mitchell became Bear Bryant’s first black All-American, later becoming the first black assistant coach at Alabama under Bear Bryant as well. Mitchell was also the first black player to be named co-captain for the Alabama football team in 1972. In 2009 he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
As the first black football player recruited to play at Alabama, Wilbur Jackson faced unbelievable pressure to succeed. “Three Days” digs into not just Jackson’s relationship with the University of Alabama, but also his respect and relationship with his parents, which had as much to do with his success as his legendary coach. It was the fear of disappointing his parents, rather than the fear of letting down his race, that kept him at Alabama.

Jackson ended up averaging an Alabama record 7.2 yards per carry in his career in Bear Bryant’s vaunted wishbone offense. In 1973 Jackson carried the ball 95 times for 752 yards and eight touchdowns, leading the Tide to the 1973 national championship. He was drafted in the first round of the 1974 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers, and in 2007 he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

“Three Days” documents how Alabama fan’s love for athletics led to the healing of these festering wounds of segregation, and the bringing together of its people, both black and white. Times have changed for Alabama athletics, and the stories of the men told in “Three Days At Foster” are the catalysts of that change.

http://bamahammer.com/2013/08/24/three-days-at-foster-documents-integration-of-alabama-football/