"Grambling had football. Southern had football and academics." These were my words as I described to a lady my view of the legendary, continuing rivalry between two Louisiana schools, both historically Black: Southern University and Grambling University. Each fall Southern and Grambling teams face-off in the annual Bayou Classic football gameMy siblings and I grew up on Southern's campus, in Scotlandville (Baton Rouge), while Grambling is a few short miles from the now-infamous town of Jena. I've never seen anyone address this issue but it's my educated guess that Southern University and A&M College probably is the largest historically Black university in the United States. We'd drive the 70 miles east to visit Southern's New Orleans campus, back when it was new. Today, Southern has even more statewide campuses. Hurricane Katrina shifted the title "Louisiana's largest city" from New Orleans to the state capital, "Big BR" - Baton Rouge. News is out that a few rookie schoolteachers (Black Americans) called themselves giving a group of small children a rather vivid lesson about what happened over in Jena. One newscaster bothered to add that the woman in one photo, holding up a little girl with a noose around her neck, is the girl's own grandma. The implication is that the grandma and the other adults were awkwardly sharing with the kids what Black Americans have been and are subjected to. Clearly their method was idiotic, not to mention weird, especially for small kids. In some parts of the U.S. we call this 'backasswards'. To me the bigger question is, Why is this the only time mainstream media mention anything about Grambling (or any other U.S. Black college)? A chyron (subtitle) image on MSNBC even mispelled Grambling's name as "Gambling State University". I've never before seen CNN interview - or more like put on the spot - Grambling president Dr. Horace Judson. The only other times these two charismatic schools are publicly acknowledged is via the rare, obscure and marginal media mention of inter-collegiate Black college football.
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