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Richard Helppie
Hello, and welcome to The Common Bridge. I've got a great story for you today. We're actually going to turn the tables a little bit and interview our producer, Brian Kruger, because among other accomplishments in his life, he's been a documentary filmmaker. Brian, welcome to The Common Bridge.
Brian Kruger
It's great to be here Rich, and the tables have turned. [Laughter.]
Richard Helppie
Indeed they have. We've got the camera actually turned on for it. But it looks an important topic today because February is Black History Month. Much of [our] history was written without including the history of black people. The tradition for Black History studies goes back to the 1920s. Black History Month was formed in February to honor the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, of course with his role in trying to promote equality among the races. In the late 1960s, what was then called Negro History Week had evolved into what is known as Black History Month. Colleges and universities began to hold commemorations, with Kent State University being one of the first. It was in 1976, with Michigan's own President Gerald Ford - the only person ever to serve as president having never been elected as president nor having been elected as Vice President; thank you 25th amendment - he officially recognized Black History Month. During the country's 1976 bicentennial, Ford called upon Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every endeavor throughout our history." And of course, this was codified just a few years later by President Ronald Reagan. Gerald Ford served as president from August 9, 1974 to January 20, 1977. Probably when you read about Gerald Ford, you hear about the pardon of Richard Nixon, which arguably cost Gerald Ford the re-election or the actual election. But Ford was one of those guys that seemed to honor country first versus political party versus his own personal ambition, something that we could use a little bit more of these days. Gerald Ford's motivation for being such an ardent supporter of Black History Month goes back to 1934. We've got Brian here to tell you about it. Brian, you made a documentary about this, what's it called?
Brian Kruger
It's called "Black and Blue: The story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game." It's a long title, but we had to get it all in there because it really explains what it was and what what the story is about.
Richard Helppie
So Willis Ward, tell us about him.
Brian Kruger
So let me recap how that goes. Willis Ward was a world class - in high school, at Detroit Northwestern High School - was a world class track athlete. He had set indoor track records for the distance running and short running but also hurdles, high hurdles, low hurdles. He was an incredible athlete, and he was being groomed and being scouted by Dartmouth College to play football, because Dartmouth College was one of the very rare instances where colleges would allow a black player to play. It wasn't very common back then. So he was going to go to Dartmouth. He was also being really scouted by the University of Michigan who had a an athletic director who was not very favorable of having black football players. He had black athletes, but they were on the track team, they were moved over to that.
Richard Helppie
Who was that?
Brian Kruger
That was Fielding H. Yost, legendary coach and athletic director Fielding H. Yost, who made it very clear that there were not going to be any black players on his football team. In fact, Michigan hadn't had a black player on their team since the late 1800s before Yost showed up. So there was a precedent here that was going back some 40 years. But Willis Ward made quite a splash in the Detroit area and then nationwide. The coach of Michigan football at the time was a guy named Harry Kipke who was a star for the University of Michigan as an athlete as well, and he had been the coach of the football team for a couple of years. And Michigan was good; they were undefeated national champions in 1932 and 1933 and Ward was there at that time. Prior to that, Michigan had just built their brand new stadium, there was a lot of excitement on campus, and they were building those championship teams. So Harry Kipke knew of Willis Ward and he lobbied - not Fielding Yost - he lobbied some of the board members at the University of Michigan and said, hey, can I recruit this guy? Let's get this guy in; you guys deal with Yost, I'm going to bring in Willis Ward. And that's where the - quote, unquote - fun started.
Richard Helppie
And over in Grand Rapids, on the other side of the state, was a very good athlete by the name of Gerry Ford, who enrolled at the University of Michigan, ultimately became an All American player for the Wolverines. And these two were roomed together, is that correct?
Brian Kruger
That is correct. They met on the very first day at the University of Michigan, both as freshmen, and they both knew who each other was. They were both All State football players. Gerald Ford, coming out of Grand Rapids South and Willis Ward coming out of Detroit Northwestern, so they knew of each other. Then the first day at college registration, they're getting things sorted out, they met each other and they became friends instantly, and from their freshman year - and freshmen weren't allowed to play football back then, so they could only play their sophomore junior and senior years - Ford and Ward became friends on the freshmen or JV team. As the years progressed, Willis Ward became a starter as a sophomore, as a junior, and as a senior because he was very good and very fast. Gerald Ford was playing behind an All American named Bill Boardman. So he was a center and he was just going to play behind him until his senior year. Gerald Ford did not start for the University of Michigan until 1934, his senior year, and it meant the world for Gerald Ford to be a starter on the University of Michigan team. But as we know from the documentary, all hell broke loose in 1934.
Richard Helppie
So you have these two young men bonded over their athletic prowess. They come to this huge campus, one from the biggest city in Michigan, Detroit, one from probably the second biggest city at that time, Grand Rapids. They meet, they become friends, they practice football. The fellow from Detroit was a better athlete, more prepared to compete and his friend behind a very, very good player. But now we've got two back to back national championships in 1932, 1933. The 1934 season is about to begin. And I understand that a team from the south, Georgia Tech, had agreed to travel to Ann Arbor to play the University of Michigan in the stadium that has now become known as the Big House. One of the announcers from Michigan used to refer to this as the hole that Yost dug, so Fielding H. Yost was an impactful and a very big name in college football, particularly at the University of Michigan. The ice arena at the University of Michigan where the Wolverine hockey team plays is called Yost Arena. (Brian Kruger: That's correct.) So he looms large.
Brian Kruger
Yeah, he loomed large nationwide. He was right up there with Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne was another one; they really painted the picture, set the rules, they really set forth what college football even is to this day. Fielding Yost was a huge, huge influencer in college football. So everybody kind of looked to Yost for hey, what do we do next. So this becomes very interesting. In 1934, we're in the middle of the depression and Fielding Yost is looking to put people in the seats of that big stadium, the big hole, the Big House, they call it. And he looked at the South because in Detroit, we had a lot of workers coming up from the South to Michigan. And he figured, hey, I wonder if I bring in a team from the South, that we can fill that stadium up even more during these years. And it wasn't a bad idea. The problem, of course, was that teams from the South - south of the Mason Dixon Line - they had rules throughout the South that teams from the South would not take the field if there was a black player playing on the opposing team and Fielding H. Yost knew this. Early in 1934. Fielding H. Yost went down to Georgia Tech where he had a connection with his brother-in-law, who knew the athletic director, Alexander, at Georgia Tech. They became friends and he went down there. He also went down to talk to the football team and say, hey, you guys, you got a good program going here and if you'd like, we'd like to have you come up to play in Michigan. They loved that. Well, Alexander asked him at the time, say, I understand you have a black player up there. We're not going to play with a black player, you understand that? And he said, oh yeah, I'll take care of that. But Yost wasn't talking to anybody about this in the spring of 1934. Then about May or June of 1934, telegrams started coming back up from Georgia Tech going, we can't wait to play in the new stadium, this is going to be amazing. It's going to be good for our program, we're going to play the national champions, can't wait. Just a reminder, we don't play against black players, so do I have your word that you're not going to play your only black player Willis Ward?
Richard Helppie
So Brian, if I'm not mistaken, the southern teams that would request - in fact they'd require - their opponents not have any black players, but they would offer to bench players on their own team of similar capability or similar stature, correct?
Brian Kruger
That is correct. And it wasn't so much an offer, that was part of the bargaining. Both teams would sit down and go, okay, so for sitting down our guy, our African American player, let's see what kind of impact we can have on your team. Sometimes it got contentious, but generally they'd come up with an agreement. Sometimes it wasn't just one player, it was two or three just to make it even. Georgia Tech had offered, and Michigan accepted, a guy named Hoot Gibson who was going to be benched for Georgia Tech should they end up playing this game. Hoot Gibson was quoted later in life, in the 1960s and early 70s, that he still hadn't forgiven Georgia Tech University for benching him for a black guy; he still had that racism in him all the way to the end of his days.
Richard Helppie
When you think about the roots of the racism, too, I think it's important for people to understand what Fielding Yost's family was like, and particularly the close connection with the Confederacy.
Brian Kruger
That's right. Fielding Yost, of course, comes out of the South, West Virginia. His father was a surgeon for General Lee for the Confederate Army in the Civil War. So it's not like - not that this is acceptable at all - but as you said, it does lay the groundwork for where Fielding Yost is coming from. To him it's much more of oh, sure, yeah, we'll bench our black guy, no problem - because that's just the way he was. It was an unspoken thing at the University of Michigan; everybody just looked the other way. Plus, during the time of Jim Crow, it wasn't shocking that that was going on. There were some schools in the Big Ten - Ohio State was one, I think Minnesota might have been - they had a black player as well. But other than that, there weren't very many around for the exact same reason. So it gets to be one of those things; if you're judging the man today for what the feelings were back, then it's probably not quite a fair judgment.
Richard Helppie
Similarly, it also gives rise to the connection between the philosophy of the Confederacy and protests today, or flying the Confederate flag and such, that there is a direct link there and it should enrage people. So now we're back to 1934 and as far as Fielding Yost is concerned, Georgia Tech's going to come up, bench their player Hoot Gibson, Michigan's going to keep Willis Ward out of the game, and everything's fine. But then a young man named Gerald Ford got wind of this, what happened?
Brian Kruger
Well, we'll take it back to the summer. What's happening is word starts to get out that this game is going to be played, and then reporters - national reporters from the sports magazines in New York, from Time Magazine - they start calling the University of Michigan going, hey, looks like Georgia Tech's coming up to play you guys, we see a problem. Yost's response to that was to have no response. He refused to answer and he said, I don't know if that's true or not, we'll have to see what happens. Well, Yost knew exactly what was going to happen with that. Georgia Tech knew from a telegram that we have in the documentary that he's all set. They're going to play Michigan, Michigan's going to bench their African American player. Well, in the summer when it started leaking out, the football team started going, wait a minute, so what's going to happen? The buzz in the locker room was Yost is going to bench Willis Ward. Now Willis Ward was not only a friend - he was well liked within the team - but his roommate on the road, a 20 year old kid by the name of Gerald Ford, said this - and keep in mind, Gerald Ford hadn't started for the University of Michigan, any of his eligible years, this was the year he was going to start (Rich Helppie: And he was a captain too, right?) and captain - and he said, look, if they bench you, I'm not going to play. That's what he told Ward and even wrote a note back to his dad and said, should I quit the team? He even went to Kipke and said, if you bench him, I quit. Well, now we have something going on. Now the student body is starting to get involved. And there starts to be protests on campus when the students come back in August, we're getting closer to the game. It gets so bad that they start taking sides, and back then the fraternities were very much about, hey, Georgia Tech is our guest, we need to bring them up here, we'll bench Ward, we just got to let this go. They are our guests, we need to agree with what they're asking. Of course, the rest of the university was going crazy on it. But this became national news. It was in the New York Times, and it was in Time Magazine, it became a huge deal that Yost thought would just go away. So Michigan starts the 1934 season after being undefeated national champions in '32 and '33. They start out the season in 1934, going 0-3. Now it's really starting to get crazy, the team is really affected by it, everybody's affected by it. But officially, before Georgia Tech comes up - the week before they come up - there's still no decision on whether or not they're going to play this game. Because the University of Michigan students say, look, cancel the game, just cancel it, all the way up until the week before. Of course, Yost has no intentions of doing this, he's just not saying anything. Then when they get down to the game, the night before the game, they have a big meeting with Georgia Tech, with the University of Michigan board members and such, and they said, look, we're going to bench Ward, and we're going to play this game. Not only did they say that, they made sure that Ward wasn't at the game at all. Ward wanted to be on the sidelines rooting his team on, but they said no, you can't be in the stadium at all. You're going to have to listen to the game on the radio. Actually, the first thing they said [to him was] go down to Ohio State, drive down to Columbus and scout that team. He said, I don't want to do that, so he just listened to it on the radio. But he was banned from his own stadium that day as well. And Yost, knowing that there was going to be problems and protests, he hired the Pinkerton Guards to come up. There was a rule made that they're going to control the rioting but they're not going to use tear gas if the rioters get on the field. It was that wound up.
Richard Helppie
The parallels today in terms of seeking justice, and the preemptive strikes, I mean, it's almost like we're not getting any better. But let's talk just a minute about the game and then Willis Ward and Gerald Ford post-game. Of course, this is all in the documentary called "Black and Blue." Brian, how can somebody view "Black and Blue?" How do they get a hold of this documentary?
Brian Kruger
I think you can find it on Amazon, the DVD is out there. I think it's stream-able, you can stream it off of Amazon or you can go to StuntThree.com and we can send you one as well.
Richard Helppie
Or you can write to the show and we'll make sure you get a streaming link.
Brian Kruger
Yeah. Or write us at editor@TheCommonBridge at substack.com and we'll send you one as well.
Richard Helppie
So the game was played and apparently Gerald Ford played the game of his life.
Brian Kruger
He did. He decided to play the game. The game started out really, really rough. The guys on the Georgia Tech team were not at all happy about all of the controversy and they let Michigan know about it. They were chirping at the Michigan players, calling them the "N-word lovers" and such, and back and forth and it got ugly. There was one guy in particular who was doing that on the line of scrimmage and Gerald Ford pounded this guy so hard that he broke three ribs on the initial set of downs, and he was carted off. The next day, Gerald Ford and some of his teammates went over to Willis Ward and said, we made that tackle for you, we went after those guys. Michigan ended up winning that game and it was the only game that Michigan won the whole season. They were 1-7, the worst season in Michigan football history to this day. They went from two undefeated seasons to a one in seven record. That was the only game they won the rest of the year after that game. Michigan only scored 12 offensive points, and all 12 were scored by Willis Ward.
Richard Helppie
So we now have these two young men finishing their college career. They're in a nationally recognized story with real reporters doing real reporting - imagine that, ponder that one for a moment, if you will. [Laughter.]
Brian Kruger
There's a documentary, Rich.
Richard Helppie
Yeah, imagine how the story would be covered today; what, nothing to see here versus this is the end of the world, okay, depending on where you're tuned in. So I think people understand Gerald Ford's path. He began working hard, literally door to door, running for the United States Congress. He was an able representative who continued to be re-elected. When Spiro Agnew resigned and then Richard Nixon resigned, the 25th Amendment carried Gerald Ford into the Oval Office. And Gerald Ford - with his lifelong friend, and his love for justice, and his admiration for Willis Ward - said we're going to help change the country. (Brian Kruger: That's right.) But what happened to Willis Ward after college?
Brian Kruger
Okay, so Willis Ward's story becomes very interesting. The football season ends in 1934. In the spring of 1935...Ward, remember is a world class track athlete. He's on the track team, and he's the only guy in the country to beat Jesse Owens. And so Jesse Owens and Willis Ward become friends as well. But in the spring, in Ann Arbor, Jesse Owens sets, I believe, four world records at the University of Michigan at Fisher Field where Michigan used to play football before the big house was built. But it was a great day. Willis Ward couldn't compete that day because he had a torn muscle, and they became great friends. Willis Ward talked about that it was an amazing day to watch, but also held in his back pocket that he had beaten Jesse Owens. A month after that, Willis Ward went to the Olympic trials, because he wanted to qualify for the 1936 Olympics, which of course, were the infamous Olympics in Berlin hosted by Adolf Hitler. Willis Ward qualified for the team as decathlete - that's all the events. He was the top ranked Olympian for 1936 going to Berlin and he decided not to go. His quote was, ìI didn't want to be Jim Crowed, like I was in Ann Arbor, in Berlin by Adolf Hitler.î And we all remember what Jesse Owens ended up doing at that event.
Richard Helppie
It's a sad commentary on so many fronts. But it shows you what a principled man Willis Ward was.
Brian Kruger
That's right. So in the summer of 1935, after Willis Ward decides he's not going to go to the Olympics and such, he goes to work for Henry Ford. Henry Ford hires him along with Harry Bennett. If you know something about the history of Ford Motor Company you'll know who Harry Bennett was. He was a little bit of Ford's, well, officially, his security guy.
Richard Helppie
Thug, I think is the word you're looking for. Can we use that word anymore, because that's what he was. He was just a brutal guy.
Brian Kruger
He was a thug. He also had a very close relationship with Harry Kipke and during the summer, Harry Bennett would hire Kipke's football players to work for Ford Motor Company. But back then, it mostly meant that Kipke could practice the University of Michigan football team behind the old administration building on Miller Road. That, of course, was an NCAA violation - it was even back then - it got Kipke in a bunch of trouble towards the end of his career. Anyway, Willis Ward goes to work for Henry Ford and Henry Ford puts him at the Rouge plant because one of the big problems they're having at the Rouge factory was one of Henry Ford's doings. But it's, I think, an incredible thing to do back then. He would hire African American workers to come up and work side by side, on the line at the Rouge, for the exact same pay as the white workers. That was unheard of at the time. So Henry Ford brings Willis Ward to the Rouge plant to work with, in supervisory fashion, workers on the line at the Rouge plant. We have pictures in the documentary; Willis Ward wore a suit and tie. He was arguably the highest paid executive, or the most influential African American executive, in the country at that time, because Ford Motor Company was one of the largest corporations. So he does that for a while, but Willis Ward wants to be a lawyer. So he approaches and tells Harry Bennett, that look, I want to go to law school. Well, Henry Ford hears about this and says, stay with us, I'll pay you twice as much as any lawyer would ever make. Just stay with us, we really like having you here. In fact, Willis Ward would go on trips in the south with Henry Ford, to give speeches about working with Ford Motor Company, which I thought was very interesting as well. But Willis Ward decides, I'm going to go to law school instead, which he does, and he practices in Detroit for a time. Right about that time, World War II starts and both Willis Ward and Gerald Ford ended up going into World War II; Ford goes into the Navy and Willis Ward goes into the Army. They come out of that. As you said, Gerald Ford then runs for office and Willis Ward does too. Willis Ward, in 1950, runs against Charles Diggs. Willis Ward runs as a Republican in a very, very strong Democrat precinct in Detroit and loses to Charles Diggs. But Willis Ward stays with law, he works with the Wayne County prosecutor's office. Gerald Ford stays friends with him, they stay in touch the whole time. As you had pointed out, you get into the '60s and when Gerald Ford becomes one of the only Republicans, at first, to support the voters rights amendment; he was the Minority Whip at the time. He got a lot of his guys in line and said, look, we're going to support this. You really are hard pressed not to think that his relationship with Willis Ward and watching what happened to Willis Ward in 1934 didn't have an impact on that. So their lives stayed co-mingled together all the way through when Willis Ward passed away in 1981 and all the way up until when Gerald Ford passed away, and even starts to connect after that.
Richard Helppie
Before we jump on to that, didn't he become a probate judge?
Brian Kruger
He was, and he was the first African American probate judge in Wayne County. He oversaw the final settlement of the Dodge Brothers will that goes all the way back to 1921. Fascinating career.
Richard Helppie
So Willis Ward goes on to a very distinguished career in industry with Ford Motor Company, and by the way, Gerald Ford has no connection at all to the Ford Motor Company. Nothing, no relationship at all.
Brian Kruger
Right. Gerald Ford's real last name is not Ford at all. He was a stepson.
Richard Helppie
He was adopted by his stepfather. (Brian Kruger: That's right.) So Willis Ward has a distinguished career, he becomes a judge, they've remained friends throughout Willis's life. And Gerald Ford, when he has the opportunity, does this for Black History Month. I think it's a great testimony to the awful things that Willis Ward - arguably immensely talented man - I think this is a testimony to the certifiably extraordinary man that Willis Ward was (Brian Kruger: Absolutely.) and that bond between two people who, in today's terms, couldn't be more different based on the amount of melanin in their skin, (Brian Kruger: That's exactly right.) and I think it's an ideal that we should all continue to strive for. Gerald Ford was not popular for his role. He was willing to put everything on the line. Willis Ward was victimized and fought through that. We have this great story in the documentary called "Black and Blue." It's about what, a 45 minute story, Brian?
Brian Kruger
It runs about an hour, we had to cut it for PBS. So it's actually exactly 56 minutes, 54 seconds.
Richard Helppie
Well, again, we'll put up instructions on how to get to the product. Did Gerald Ford ever mention Willis Ward after leaving the presidency?
Brian Kruger
Now, he did on The Larry King Show. And we have a funny aside from that. When we were making the documentary, we asked the same question Rich, we said is there anything out there where Gerald Ford talks about the Willis Ward incident on live TV? We didn't know of any until Steve Ford, Gerald Ford's son, called and said, hey, I do remember one, we were on The Larry King Show together. I was with him and he brought it up and you can get a clip of that. So I went to CNN and got the clip. It was going to cost us - and we're documentary filmmakers, so go with us on this - about $28,000 to license that piece of film, to which Steve Ford told me, hey, Brian, don't worry about that, my dad and Larry King were great friends so let me handle that. A couple days later, Steve Ford called me again and said, well, it turns out that my dad and Larry King weren't that great of friends. [Laughter.]
Richard Helppie
It was a $27,000 clip, $28,000...no, no, you're not, not that close. [Laughter.]
Brian Kruger
The Gerald Ford Foundation, which I think Steve Ford was the president at the time, covered that cost for us for the film, which was great. But the other time that Gerald Ford wrote about that was in the New York Times during the University of Michigan's battle of affirmative action. Back...I can't remember the year it was now, but he wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times, and said, I think that the affirmative action law might be a good thing and here's why. And he told the story of Willis Ward, then. Those are the only two we can think of that really ever happened. Then President Bush mentioned it - and this is how we heard of the story - President Bush mentioned the Willis Ward story at Gerald Ford's funeral when he was eulogizing the former president. That's when the story really came out again, and we looked into it and made the documentary.
Richard Helppie
Well, it's a great story. As we all mark Black History Month, there's a lot to learn. It's a sad chapter in our history and it's also inspiring. We are on our way, God willing, toward a more perfect union. Brian, I applaud you and your other documentary makers to bring this story to the fore. And Brian, as you've been side by side with me on all of The Common Bridge episodes, is there anything that we didn't cover today that perhaps we should have?
Brian Kruger
Thanks, Rich. There is one more story I'd like to tell before we wrap this up. After Ford passed away there was a movement from the Republicans in Lansing, Michigan that wanted to put a statue of Ford in Statuary Hall in Washington DC. For those of you who don't know, every state in the Union gets two statues in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and Michigan's are Lewis Cass and Zechariah Chandler. Zechariah Chandler was an abolitionist hero from Detroit during the Civil War. So in order to get a statue of Gerald Ford put in the Capitol, they were going to have to take either Lewis Cass or Zechariah Chandler down. They were going keep Cass because he was a governor. Anyway, there was a movement afoot in Lansing, and they couldn't really get enough support from both Democrats and Republicans. At the time the Democrats in Detroit said, look, what has Gerald Ford ever done for civil rights? They took a vote and they voted it down. But after they voted it down, somebody stood up on the floor, a representative from Detroit named Buzz Thomas, and Buzz Thomas told the story. He said, let me tell you something about Gerald Ford, and told the story about Gerald Ford and Willis Ward. After he was done telling that story, they took another vote, and they weren't losing anymore. They got all the votes from Detroit, they got all the votes from Republicans and the Democrats. And together in a bipartisan effort, they put a statue of Gerald Ford in the Capitol. But what was really cool about that is Gerald Ford is not in Statuary Hall where all the other statues are. He's actually in the Capitol rotunda, because they figured the importance of that presidency, how he got there, was such that it needed to be in the Capitol rotunda. It's really quite amazing. If you ever get to visit there, you really should look for the Gerald Ford statue, it's great.
Richard Helppie
Well, it's a wonderful story. I again recommend the movie "Black and Blue: The story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward, and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game." I hope everybody takes some time to get a little more education during this Black History Month. So with our special guest, and our producer, Mr. Brian Kruger, this is Rich Helppie signing off on The Common Bridge.
(Watch, Listen or Read) Black and Blue- When Jim Crow Came to The Big House