Anisa Khalifa: Greensboro, North Carolina is known for its rich civil rights history. Most people associate it with the Greensboro Four, a group of college students who led a series of sit-ins at a segregated lunch counter in 1960. Those events inspired a movement that spread across the South. It would become one of the most iconic moments of the Civil Rights era. But before that, there was a lesser known Greensboro Six. In 1955, six Black men did something radical. They attempted to play a round of golf.
Josh Sullivan: This just kind of sparked, uh, a greater revolution, in North Carolina in particular, but especially in the South.
Anisa Khalifa: Those six men launched an effort to desegregate one of the most exclusive spaces in American society. And golfers today are carrying that legacy forward.
Mark Lathan: If all we have to do is just spread the story and talk about what they did, that’s super easy. I’ll scream it from the mountaintops. Scream it for whoever will listen.
Anisa Khalifa: I’m Anisa Khalifa. You're listening to The Broadside, where we tell stories from our home at the crossroads of the South. This week, the importance of taking a swing.
Back in the 1950s, Doctor George Simkins was a prominent dentist living in Greensboro, North Carolina. And in his spare time, he loved to play golf.
Josh Sullivan: Dr. Simpkins was a huge golfer. He took half days every single Wednesday and went and played a round.
Anisa Khalifa: That’s Josh Sullivan. He’s a social media producer here at WUNC, and a big golfer who recently reported a story about the Greensboro Six.
Josh Sullivan: I had never heard of the Greensboro Six before and I stumbled across this story and it really stuck out because it seems like such a monumental story, right?
Anisa Khalifa: It starts in December of 1955. That’s when Doctor Simkins learned about something big happening down in Alabama.
Josh Sullivan: Rosa Parks leads the bus boycott, um, just about a week before this all went down.
Anisa Khalifa: Inspired by that effort to desegregate public transit in Montgomery, Doctor Simkins rounded up five other folks, and headed to a nearby golf course. He and his friends were Black. The course they went to, Gillespie, was for white golfers only.
George Simkins: The city had two golf courses. And one was Gillespie, and the other was Nocho Park.
Anisa Khalifa: This is Doctor George Simkins, in conversation with the Southern Oral History Program in 1997.
George Simkins: We tried to get them to fix up Nocho, and they never would do it, yet they were slipping out and fixing up Gillespie. Of course, Gillespie was for whites, and Nocho was for Blacks.
Josh Sullivan: Gillespie, it was a city owned course, still is, but through some loophole, basically that permitted an outside financier to lease the lot for a dollar. Uh, it kind of became a members only course. And that was kind of just coded for whites only. George Simkins: Because any white person could go out there, pay their money and play. But they told us that it was a private club.
Anisa Khalifa: So on a Wednesday afternoon, the six men showed up at the Gillespie club house.
Josh Sullivan: They got kind of looked at disparagingly, dropped their money on the countertop — it cost 75 cents per person for a round — and they head out to the course.
Anisa Khalifa: And they actually got through five holes, until…
Josh Sullivan: A sheriff along with a club professional met them on the sixth hole, and they were about to tee off, and the sheriff basically said, If you tee that ball off, like, you're all going to jail. I can only imagine how much pressure there was on these six men. While it may not be illegal, it most certainly is going to result in them going to jail, and the ability for them to step up and like, actually tee off, I have no idea if it went straight down the middle, but like, I sure hope so, just for the sake of the story, right?
Anisa Khalifa: The six men were arrested later that day for trespassing and ultimately sentenced to 30 days in jail. They appealed the case to federal court, where a judge issued a declaratory judgment.
George Simkins: He said that anybody who pays taxes and has to go out and fight for this country ought to be able to enjoy the recreational facilities provided by the city. He said this course was going to be integrated in three weeks.
Josh Sullivan: Pretty soon after, before it's able to be integrated, the clubhouse burns down. You know, um, no one will say exactly how it burned down, but it wasn't necessarily a, an uncommon thing back then in the fifties. And the fire marshal condemned to the course, wasn't able to be used at all.
Anisa Khalifa: And that suspicious fire wasn’t the only setback. The case would eventually go all the way to the US Supreme Court, where it hit a snag.
Josh Sullivan: So Doc Simpkins takes this case to the NAACP, and Thurgood Marshall, the first black U. S. Supreme Court justice who was then acting as a lawyer, uh, actually was super hesitant to take the case.
George Simkins: He said, "Your lawyers ought to be the ones to go to jail." At that time, we'd been given an active jail sentence. He said, "They have screwed this case up. I'm not going to mess my record up by taking any case like this, because you cannot win.”
Anisa Khalifa: The lawyers representing the six men had left out the declaratory judgment from the earlier hearing as supporting evidence — which Thurgood Marshall noted was a guaranteed way to lose in front of the Supreme Court.
George Simkins: And sure enough, we lost by a 5-4 decision. Earl Warren was the Chief Justice, and he said, "I cannot understand how something so important could be left off the record. If this was on the record, there would be no question about whether you all are guilty or not."
Unidentified Interviewer: I didn't know golfing could be so dangerous!
George Simkins: Everything was dangerous back then. Everything.
Josh Sullivan: And so a new clubhouse was eventually built years later. Um, and almost to the day, uh, they were finally able to go back to the course, I believe seven years later and tee off and, and actually put to use this order.
Anisa Khalifa: So this is a time when a lot of people were fighting to integrate different sports during the civil rights movement. Why does this act of protest stick out? What's important about it being at a golf course?
Josh Sullivan: Golf courses are very traditionally super white spaces. That's still true today in a lot of places across the country, not just across the South. And I don't want to discredit like, golf has diversified itself a ton. But that is still ongoing because for a while, grandfathers and grandmothers, we're not able to, you teach their children because they never got to learn how to play themselves. That's starting to change as time goes on. But, the Greensboro Six, whether they meant to or not, have directly been able to influence that.
Anisa Khalifa: Coming up, Josh steps up to the tee box at Gillespie where George Simkins made history and finds out how the Greensboro Six are still influencing the game of golf today.
So you went out to Gillespie to play some golf.
Josh Sullivan: Yeah, it was my first time ever in Greensboro and I was really excited to see this course and what stuck out the most to me was how humble it was….it was very unassuming, but it had everything you could possibly need to play golf and be a better golfer. It was a really, really hot day.
Mark Lathan: Super fun, super hot but fun.
Josh Sullivan: Is it hotter here than Charlotte?
Mark Lathan: It seems like it. I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm in the heat here, but it seems like it.
Josh Sullivan: I played a round with Mark Lathan. He's a, uh, he's an employee at first tee, the nonprofit that helps, uh, underprivileged youth get into the game…
Mark Lathan: That’s our goal here in Greensboro. Make it the Triad area the epicenter of Black and Brown golf and just make it fun.
Josh Sullivan: Mark himself is a black golfer who got into the game kind of by chance. Uh, he didn't have any family members or friends that really golfed. And so he looked to other people at the course to kind of teach him and show him the way.
Mark Lathan: Went to the golf course, started hitting with some old raggedy clubs and the guys just saw me coming out and said let me help you out.
Anisa Khalifa: And it sounds like Mark is paying that forward with his work at the nonprofit especially with young golfers. And you met some young golfers, right, who play for historically black colleges.
Josh Sullivan: Yeah, I met three young men, Darius Gillis, Jesse Williams, and Tyler Thomas. A couple of them are interns for the First Tee program. So Jesse Williams, his great-grandfather, he never actually got to meet him, he died before he was born. But his great grandfather was a big golfer, but he wasn’t able to golf just anywhere he wanted. And that’s something that his parents and his grandmother never let him forget. When he was playing in tournaments growing up they always kind of reminded him ‘yeah you might not want to go to the course today, but guess what, this wasn't an option for your great-grandfather.”
Jesse Williams: Back in the day, my grandfather, he was only allowed to play select courses. Either ones that you were caddying at or ones you were asked to come to. Outside of that, you just weren’t allowed to play. So now that we can play anywhere it's just amazing.
Anisa Khalifa: And how did Jesse and these young golfers that you spoke to feel about the Greensboro Six?
Josh Sullivan: They all learned about the Greensboro Six at different points. But they all recognize that there's like a good possibility that they wouldn't be there if it weren't for the work that they did.
Jesse Williams: It’s not a white man’s sport. It’s an everybody’s sport, in that everybody can play no matter their socioeconomic status, anything like that. You can come pick up a golf club.
Mark Lathan: You know, I'll scream it from the mountaintop, scream it for whoever will listen.
Josh Sullivan: Mark Lathan said it to me kind of best. He said, I wouldn't be able to do what I do professionally if it weren't for the Greensboro Six.
Mark Lathan: You know I believe it's on just our next generation, so it's on us, on myself, on what we're doing here with the First Tee to just continue to tell that story.
Anisa Khalifa: This year, ahead of the PGA Tour's 85th Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, community members had a new way to remember and share that story: a mural at Gillespie golf course honoring the bravery and legacy of the Greensboro Six.
(SOUNDBITE FROM NEWS BROADCAST)
Unidentified Anchor: Take a look at this beautiful new mural at Gillespie Golf Course in Greensboro. It honors the Greensboro Six.
Josh Sullivan: I think the big thing is that the story has been passed down by word of mouth, but as the people who have passed it down stop going to the course every day, or, some of them unfortunately pass away, this is something that is in your face, like, in in the best way possible. It is the first thing you see when you step onto the course. You can see it from the highway to some extent.
Chris Simkins: I have spent countless hours walking around this course and I love walking around this course, but now, to see this mural and to see how large it is, it really makes a big statement.
Anisa Khalifa: The son of Doctor George Simkins — Chris Simkins — was at Gillespie for the mural’s unveiling. He spoke to Greensboro’s WFMY.
Chris Simkins: He would be so proud because this mural will encourage other young people to learn about the Greensboro Six and hopefully inspire a younger generation of African American young people to play golf.
Josh Sullivan: This is super colorful. It has the Greensboro Six on it. It has Charlie Sifford on it and it has some younger golfers on it as well. It's really displaying the past, present and future of golf, and especially of black golf.
Anisa Khalifa: You mentioned Charlie Sifford is also on the mural. Why is he so important to this history?
Josh Sullivan: So Charlie Sifford is the first black professional golfer on the PGA Tour. He was born in Charlotte. He grew up working as a caddy at one of the elite golf courses there. That's how he learned the game, there was a man who kind of took him under his wing. Caddies were allowed to play on Mondays, so he would play the course on Mondays with him. If you don't have Charlie Sifford, you don't get the greatest player to ever play the game of golf, who is Tiger Woods. That doesn't happen. Tiger Woods knows that himself, so much so that he even names his first born son after Charlie Sifford.
Anisa Khalifa: So throughout your reporting, you've talked to all these people who have, you know, either familial legacies or they're looking back, you know, to the Greensboro Six, to great players of the past who have made strides that they can then follow in their footsteps. How do you think about that legacy as it moves forward today?
Josh Sullivan: When I look at myself personally as like a golfer, I came into the sport kind of without a choice. My grandparents are both very, very into it. My grandmother is obsessed with golf to this day. She is, she plays a couple of days a week. It took until I researched for the story to understand just how big of a privilege that was that not everyone was granted. Especially people who might be older than me.
I think the most important legacy the Greensboro Six has left behind is that Gillespie is kind of the home for black and Brown golf now. That is the legacy is like, this is, this is a home to something where in a world where there's still not as many open doors for golfers of color, as there should be. This has been like, left behind and has been inspiring the next generation of people who are going to be able to go elsewhere all across the country and open those doors.
Anisa Khalifa: If you’d like to see a photo of the Greensboro Six mural, check out this week’s show notes. We’ve also included links to Josh Sullivan’s reporting. This episode of The Broadside was produced by Charlie Shelton-Ormond. Our editor is Jerad Walker. And our executive producer is Wilson Sayre. Special thanks to the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Broadside is a production of WUNC–North Carolina Public Radio and is part of the NPR Network. You can email us at broadside@wunc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend! I’m Anisa Khalifa. Thanks for listening y'all. We'll be back next week.