The 1956 Sugar Bowl Football Game Controversy stemmed from a college bowl game played between the Georgia Tech University Yellow Jackets and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Panthers on January 2, 1956, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The controversy stemmed from the decision by Georgia governor Marvin Griffin, a white segregationist, to ban any Georgia team from playing the Pitt Panthers because they had an African American fullback and linebacker, Bobby Grier. Despite Griffin’s efforts, Grier would play, and the 1956 Sugar Bowl became the first racially-integrated bowl game in the Deep South.
The 1955 Pitt Panthers had a successful regular season with a 7-4 record and subsequently the team was invited to play in the 1956 Sugar Bowl against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. On December 2, 1955, Governor Griffin, after learning the Panthers were a racially integrated team, sent a telegram to the Georgia Tech Board of Regents imploring them to not play against the Panthers or any racially integrated team. He also called on Sugar Bowl officials to ban Black spectators from the Sugar Bowl during the game.
Later that night, 2,000 Georgia Tech students protested Governor Griffin’s actions. Some protesters held signs saying, “We play anybody” while other signs said, “Governor Griffin sits on his brains.” The protest soon turned violent when students broke windows, pushed over parking meters, and hung Governor Griffin in effigy. The student protestors then marched from the Georgia Tech campus to the governor’s mansion where state representative Milton Smith addressed the students and confirmed that the game would still be played.
A few days later, the University of Georgia, the main cross-state rival to Georgia Tech, held their own anti-Governor Griffin protests in Athens stating “For once we are with Georgia Tech.” The controversy became national news when Walter Reuther, the president of the United Auto Workers, one of the largest unions in the nation, called Griffin’s statement “Un-American.”
On December 5, 1955, the Georgia Tech board of regents voted 13-1 in favor of allowing the game to proceed and calling for Grier to play. The Sugar Bowl game took place as scheduled on January 2, 1956, where the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeating the Pitt Panthers 7-0. In 2019, sixty-three years after the game, Bobby Grier would be elected to the Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame.
