American Football League All-Star Game - The 1965 Boycott

The 1965 Boycott

After the 1964 season, the AFL All-Star Game had been scheduled for early 1965 in New Orleans' Tulane Stadium. After numerous black players were refused service by a number of New Orleans hotels and businesses, black and white players alike lobbied for a boycott. Under the leadership of Buffalo Bills players including Cookie Gilchrist, the players put up a unified front, and the game was successfully moved to Houston's Jeppesen Stadium.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had just recently been passed, likely encouraging the AFL players in their cause, which was the first boycott in history of an entire city by a professional sports event.

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