Wednesday, of course is Juneteenth, the observance of when, “officially” at least, slavery in this country was abolished on June 19, 1865, as slaves in Texas, a state that had not yet accepted the end of the Civil War two months before with the surrender of the Confederate army, were ordered to be released.

It was a little over 81 years after that, on Sept. 6, 1946, when that process continued as the color barrier was permanently broken not just in pro football, but all of pro sports, coming out of World War II as nose tackle Bill Willis and fullback Marion Motley played for the Browns against the Miami Seahawks at Cleveland Stadium in the franchise’s first-ever game in the debut of the All-America Football Conference.

Jackie Robinson would not shatter the color barrier in Major League Baseball until eight months later, on April 15, 1947, when he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. As that happened, Robinson called Willis and Motley for pointers on how to handle it.

Larry Doby broke the color barrier in the American League a little less than two months later, on July 5, 1947, when he played with the then Cleveland Indians. So, interestingly enough, three of the first pro sports trend-setters, Doby, Motley and Willis, all shared Cleveland Stadium as their home field.

Two decades later, in 1969, Ernie Green, who had retired following the previous season after a standout seven-year career as a running back for the team, became one of the first African American assistant coaches in pro football when he got the job as running backs coach of the Browns. The man who hired him, head coach Blanton Collier, had been an assistant coach for the Browns when Willis and Motley joined the team in 1946. All that was not just a coincidence, but a commitment.

Steve King