Act 1

Those are the words Charlie and Tony King repeat each time they talk about how their careers in sports began. Tony says that when he and his brother were children they never saw Black men as a positive role models who would go to schools and share their knowledge and experiences with students. That’s why, each time he returns to his home state of Ohio, he goes to the schools and tells students about his journey as the first African-American Professional Football Player elected to the Hall of Fame who came from a small town and now travels the globe. “My grandfather worked as a railroad worker, but he had a passion for the theater. At that time he was obliged to scrub coal on his face to become even darker. My grandmother was a champion athlete. During competitions it was prohibited to share the locker rooms with white athletes. So every time she had to change in a car parked in a field. Pure humiliation.” Tony King’s (aka Malik Farrakhan) football career ended abruptly after he was caught reading the banned biography of Malcolm X. He then decided to move to the Big Apple to start anew.