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either bryant or Mckay initiated the home and home cause they were very good
friends and had wanted to for some time...be good for both programs.... had nothing to do with bryant wanting to show the state what they were missing with lilly white teams.... ==============================
Bryant and McKay were indeed friends. Bryant, however, definitely wanted to show the necks what they were missing.
The fraudulent part of the story is the notion that he was somehow on the cutting edge of integration in the Deep South. He simply wasn't. Only Ole Miss and LSU among SEC schools integrated later than Bryant did. Yet, the cutting edge mythology is propogated by those with ties to the Alabama program.
You can see it in this documentary: http://www.hbo.com/sports/breaking-the-huddle-the-integration-of-college-football
You can hear it again in the comments from Sylvester Croom and Pat Dye (who was a Bama assistant at the time) in this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnOpZvEulvY
There was a quote from Bryant in Time Magazine in the 1980s that he wanted to be "the Branch Rickey" of NCAA football.
The first integrated squad in D1 football in Alabama was Auburn. The only reason the "first integrated college game in Alabama" was played on TURF in Bham in 1970 was that Auburn did not open at home until the next week against Southern Miss.
Bryant was racially progressive compared to George Wallace, which is more like being the tallest dwarf in the circus than being like Branch Rickey.
