(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . New Orleans Saints donate $25,000 to Amistad Research Center [1] ['Khalil Gillon', 'More Khalil Gillon', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-02-26 The Amistad Research Center received a surprise $25,000 donation from the New Orleans Saints last week. The donation came after an event discussing the intersection of sports and Black history held at the Baldwin & Co. bookstore last Friday (Feb. 23). Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu joined Kathe Hambrick, Amistad’s executive director, to speak about Mathieu’s experience visiting the center at its Tulane University location earlier that day. The Amistad Research Center holds materials on ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations and civil rights — and among its archives are documents that shed light on the links between sports and Black history. Mathieu said he was inspired by learning from the archives about lesser-known Black athletes and sports figures who made history in their field or contributed to civil rights work outside of sports as well. Some of those figures included the golfer and tennis player Althea Gibson, who was the first Black woman to win the U.S. Open in 1957, and football player Paul Robeson, who also acted, sang and engaged in political activism. “I feel like I’ve always had that foundation of knowing where I come from,” Mathieu said. “When I went to the Amistad Center, I was floored because I was like ‘Wow, I didn’t know that.’ You hear of Jackie Robinson, you have some of the bigger name guys like Jim Brown, but there were so many guys that played a pivotal role in helping me be who I am today.” Hambrick gave a presentation on the contributions of Black athletes to the civil rights movement. She discussed the activism of athletes off the field, such as the work of Harold Sylvester, who was the first Black athletic scholarship student at Tulane University and who later became involved in the Free Southern Theater. Sylvester’s manuscripts from his experiences during that time are housed in the center. The center is also home to the papers and firsthand accounts about and by a number of other respected sports figures, such as longtime Grambling State University football coach Eddie Robinson and Harry Edward, Britain’s first Black person to win an Olympic medal. After the presentation, Darvelle Hutchins, vice president of equity and social impact for the New Orleans Saints, surprised Hambrick with the $25,000 check. The donation was made as part of a larger effort from the Saints to engage the community in conversations beyond sports, Hutchins said. “A lot of the work that we’ve done historically as the Saints has been more about engaging our community around sports and doing some campaigning around voting,” said Hutchins. “But I don’t think that we’ve ever had a conversation like this where we can bring folks together to talk about black history, sports and civil rights.” Hambrick was visibly thrilled by the award, which was presented in the courtyard of the bookstore. The Amistad Research Center was established by Fisk University in 1966 to house the historical records of the American Missionary Association. In 1970, the center was relocated to Dillard University before finding its current home at Tulane. “People ask me all the time, why is Black history important?” Hambrick said. “It gives me the courage to continue … no matter what the obstacle is in front of me for that day. There is nothing that I can encounter in the year 2024, professionally or personally, that could compare to what my mother and my grandmothers had to endure.” Related Stories Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/02/26/new-orleans-saints-donate-25000-to-amistad-research-center/ Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/