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Brian Hallstoos, "Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
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- [00:01]
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Brian Halstos
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Craig Gill
Hello and welcome back to the New Books Network. My name is Craig Gill and today we'll be talking to Brian Halstos about his new book, Saul An Olympian's Odyssey Through Jim Crow America. Brian, welcome to the show.
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Brian Halstos
Hey, thank you. I'm happy to be here.
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Craig Gill
So, Brian, I wonder if you could begin by just telling us a little bit about yourself.
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Brian Halstos
I am currently a professor of history at the University of Dubuque. I guess my spiritual home is the Twin Cities. I lived in Minnesota for a number of years but have been in Iowa since the late 1990s and have a master's in art history from Rutgers University. So worked in museums for a while but past, I don't know, a couple decades now I've been went to University of Iowa and got my PhD and now I'm teaching history. But it's very interdisciplinary what I do. I've got a spouse named Sharon and three children, three adult children, one who just turned 27 yesterday and a 21 year old and a 20 year old, a 21 year old and a 20 Year old and two boys and a daughter. And yeah, I enjoy sports and love long fast walks and reading and so yeah, a little bit about me.
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Craig Gill
And so how did this project come about?
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Brian Halstos
This came about in the first time I thought of doing something writing about Saul Butler, researching Saul Butler was in 2013. There was a gentleman, a local person who came to our campus to talk about Paul Robeson and and I love Paul Robeson and find him, you know, an amazing person. And part of the reason I went to Rutgers, I was inspired that's his alma mater. I mean, who wouldn't want to go to where Paul Robeson went to school? And so this man had shared story about Paul Robeson on campus. He got done, and this elderly gentleman stood up and said, white man, and said, I've met Paul Robeson. He stayed at my house. And my jaw dropped. And so I went and met him. And longer story shorter, he ended up giving me these documents. His dad played on the football team at Rutgers. And so he had photos, probably one of a kind photos that showed the team in huddle outside of where I actually, I think where my dorm used to be, and in other memorabilia, like programs and whatnot, for the. The days when he and his dad ropes and this man's dad had played. And so that prompted me to create a poster session out at American Historical association in Washington, D.C. so I went out there and presented on that, and various people, a historian, sports historian, Brian Ingrassia, came up to me at that poster session and was very enthusiastic and said, hey, would you consider writing a biography on Saul Butler? And I thanked him and said, well, I've kind of got some other project in mind, but, you know, I'll keep it in mind. But not really thinking that I would do that, but it just kind of grew on me. And over time, others kind of pushed, encouraged me to consider it. And so it didn't happen all at one time, but from it was maybe about 2014, 2015, I decided, okay, I'm going to write this book. And so I've been working at that on it pretty solidly since then. I'm at a teaching institution, so I don't. I'm not able to get much done during the academic year. But my summers, most all of them have been dedicated to traveling around the country as much as I can, you know, taking my children on college visits, you know, kind of doing double duty, you know, showing them schools and then going in research centers, wherever we may be, and. And so finally was able to. To crank it out. So.
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Craig Gill
Awesome. So over the course of that time, I'm sure you learned a great deal about Saul Butler and his life. Thinking broadly about the book, what are you hoping that your audience takes away from reading it?
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Brian Halstos
Yeah, I want people to see him as a civil rights hero. I hope that they'll see that he's in sports, but that what. He used it as a tool for opening doors and for pushing back against segregation. And so I hope people take that, that, that from the book. And, you know, and also I think even today I'm hoping that he can be seen as an inspiration for, I mean, current struggles and we can look back to the past and that we can see him as someone who is working at a time that I like to think was worse in terms of injustice and unfairness. But I mean, there are things that are happening today that are. Look scarily too much like things from a century ago and longer ago. And so we can take. Take some strength in seeing how someone in the past has navigated and pushed back against the forces of evil or injustice and oppression in powerful and creative ways. So I guess most proudly that would be something. I would like people to be inspired by his story and see him as someone who is a part of the civil rights struggle early, the long civil rights struggle, who's leading to the victories we see in subsequent decades.
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Craig Gill
Great. I wonder if you could maybe set the stage for those who perhaps are not quite sure who Saul Butler is and just kind of let us know what's his kind of story? What do people need to know about Saul Butler as like an individual? What was he famous for? What's the kind of spark Notes Saul Butler.
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Brian Halstos
Right. Great. Yeah. So in terms of dates, he was born in 1895 and died in 1954. So you forget his dates. Just think of kind of the Jim Crow era. If you think of the Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896 and you think of Brown versus Board of Education, you know, they kind of mark this kind of official period of the Jim Crow's legal segregation and the solid segregation practice throughout the country. His life spans that entire generation. So that's his lifetime. He is best known for what he did in track and field during the World 1 era. He was probably the world's greatest long jumper. Had there been an Olympics in 1916, if it wasn't canceled due to World War I, good chance that he would have brought home a gold at that time and went to the 1920 Olympics as the hands down favorite to win gold in that Olympics as well. Unfortunately, he injured himself prior to the Olympics. Kind of kept it quiet. He and his trainer kept quiet about that and they re injured himself at the Olympic Games. Maybe the most celebrated event was in 1919. There was an Inter Allied Games where he won gold in the long jump and it was filmed and he got international coverage. So that was maybe his crowning sports glory. But he also was a fantastic football player, was a standout in high school and in college and then played in the NFL, was one of the few black players in the NFL. Before it entirely segregated going into the 1930s and played on on a number of teams including with Jim Thorpe on the Canton Bulldogs and was also on all black basketball teams in the 1920s. And some really impressive all black basketball teams was a star among stars that and they would travel from Chicago to New York. He is just. I'll back up for a second. He is mostly a person from the Midwest and so, you know, we'll probably get more to that in a little bit. But so sports. But he did many other things that are sports related. He was a journalist, he was a trainer, he was a coach, he was a mentor. He mentored many of great athletes. That came later. I got to speak with the oldest living former black NFL player who talked about being trained in track and field by him as a teenager. He was a early proponent or he was working with women's basketball teams and very bringing attention to the sport and actually pushed for women to get paid at one point when he was in Los Angeles. So an all around athlete who is in the sports realm is a journalist and had. There's much more, but I guess maybe the nutshell, he was an Olympiad. He probably should have been the first black Olympian to win an individual gold, if not for injury. The next Olympics there was someone who took gold in the long jump. It had been supplanted by then.
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Craig Gill
So yeah, I think there's something always very endearing about seeing these stories of multisports athletes from a century ago compared to what we have today when we have the hyper specialization of athletes. And to be able to see someone who lived so many different sporting lives in one is always really fascinating to read about. And you tease that out really great throughout the book. And you also talk a lot about his non sporting activities or sport adjacent activities and you frame him kind of as an entrepreneur. I wonder how that framing changes how we think about athletes like him.
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Brian Halstos
Right, right. Yeah. I didn't come up with that framing until actually I'd had pretty much a full draft of the book and was kind of looking back over his life and what he did and I felt like great athlete or just looking at him as an athlete alone was not doing justice to his life. Yeah, so. So entrepreneur came. Came to mind and I think for me it's a way of kind of getting back to where I talked about him, viewing him as a, as a sports hero and as a civil rights hero. That that was a way that we could think of him in that way that he was innovating, you know, by, by being in Sports and putting himself in spaces that had been kind of marked as white spaces, you know, and that he's in these games and showing up even when it came to where it was dangerous to be present. There was a trip he made down to New Orleans where his life probably was endangered by some of the spaces he entered to play sports. But I think it, I think that's a big piece of it that he was an innovator in that he's kind of changing what was considered the norm that he is showing that you can have sports events where there's black people and white people and all hell doesn't break loose. It's actually a better, more inclusive, enjoyable thing here and kind of modeling that through, through, you know, where he, where he was. Yeah, I think that's would probably be the one way of thinking of as an entrepreneur. He also, like I mentioned before, is doing other things that were sports related and kind of kept himself even as his. As his body started to age and he wasn't able to perform at, you know, in elite levels, he was taking up journalism more heavily or going into coaching more, going into training more, or finding other ways just to stay in sports. And I think that's one thing that's remarkable about his career is that he stayed in sports much longer than other people who had been sports stars early on and found creative ways to stay in the game. And so I felt like athlete, he did great things beyond the playing fields or outside of him being on the playing fields, things that are surrounding the playing fields and drawing attention to the playing fields as well as great.
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Craig Gill
And so going back to the kind of the very start of his life or even before he was born. Your book begins by talking about his parents. How did his parents lives and their movements around the south frame his upbringing and his early life?
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Brian Halstos
Well, it's important to note that his dad, Ben Butler Sr. Was born into slavery in Alabama and eventually escaped from slavery in his early 20s. And his mom was born shortly after the war had ended. But so very different experiences. And then they met in Memphis, Tennessee and fled Memphis after a horrific lynching that took place in the early 1890s and moved out to Kingfisher, where Saul Butler was foreign in 1895. And so, you know, he grew up with, you know, a parent. I mean, I think 1. See one thing that's pretty dramatic. I mean your dad was enslaved and he becomes this national celebrity. I mean it's quite a. Just something that would have been impossible for his father from the time that he lived in so he saw dramatic progress. His parents were really influential in one way by the fact that they were intentional about moving the family to places where. Where Saul and his siblings could get a quality education and in Saul's case, also have sports opportunities that would not have been available to him had they stayed where they were before. So when Kingfisher schools made it clear that they were going to be segregated, the family ended up leaving Kingfisher to go to Wichita, Kansas, in the early 20th century. And they entered integrated schools. And when those schools started to segregate, they moved to the only other city of more than 15,000 people in all of Kansas that was not segregating. They went to Hutchinson. And so they entered these integrated schools and they stayed there, or Saul stayed there up through high school and eventually, when there wasn't segregation in the school itself, but there was things that happened in the sports realm where some schools refused to play against his team. Well, then he traveled up to Illinois. So I think this example his parents set of, will you move to opportunities? You need to be mobile. And so that was very powerful. I mean, there's lessons I think his mom taught him, and I may address those a bit later, but at least that's a start to an answer.
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Craig Gill
Yeah, I think the idea of mobility is so clear throughout your book and the power of mobility, and I think especially shows with those examples you've given of the way that his parents moved through, through, from place to place in a way that at least his father certainly couldn't have for a large part of his life. And so Saul, he becomes a star athlete in high school. And of course, this is, as you mentioned, Jim Crow is taking a hold here. And all black folks are constantly being judged by the way they act in public. Few more so than sports people who have lots of attention on them and lots of eyes on them. How did Butler choose to conduct himself as a kind of newly prominent athlete? And how did he rise to prominence?
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Brian Halstos
I guess also right when Saul was a. Oh, he was maybe about 12 years old, there was a boxer named Jack Johnson who probably many of your listeners would be familiar with. He was a black boxer who was already heavyweight champion of the world, claim that title by defeating someone in Australia, because he didn't have a chance to win that title in the US and so here he had a match that was publicized very widely, and he defeated the white opponent. And the town of Hutchinson, where Saul Butler was, there's a newspaper account of just tremendous celebration among the African American population. But what was was Very interesting is Jack Johnson was known for being very bold and just doing things the way he wanted to do things and in your face. And he was dating white women and doing things that other black men would get, oftentimes at that period of time, unfortunately would get you in serious trouble or get you killed or whatnot. But he was very, kind of, very assertive about how good he was and how he's going to do things exactly how he liked. And so Saul Butler kind of emerged as an athlete in the shadow of Jack Johnson. And that wouldn't have worked for him. They couldn't have done that. And the doors would not have been open to him. They would have been closed. And so he approached sports during this time with great humility. But I think one thing that's important, I mean, he would always give credit to his teammates and never talk about what wonderful things he did. And it seemed very, you know, very purposeful. I think that's kind of what he needed to do at that space because most of his teammates were white. The people were in the public who are sometimes helping support him for his travels are white. But he was not subservient. And there's a wonderful image of him at this time that shows him kind of with chin up and carrying this football that appeared in the school newspaper. And you know, he just, it's. I think a lot of this came from his mother was a club woman and got her children, Saul and his older siblings to go to parties that were very much about upholding middle class values and virtues and being cultured and giving readings and elocution and all these things that were seen as important to kind of being civil and dignified. And so he's very much a part of what was known as respectability politics, where you would this idea that if you present yourself as cultured and respectable and adhering to middle class values and virtues, that broader society will accept you and it'll break down the barriers and help get beyond the segregation or oppression that you're experiencing. That these doors at the local theater that now is forcing you to go to the back, which, I mean, this happened in the Midwest, this happened in Kansas, this happened where he lived, that this will change over time if we adhere to these mid class values. And so, yeah, he approached it, I guess with humility, but never subservience.
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Craig Gill
Experian yeah, I think you, you, you really eloquently show the way that he was not doing this kind of. He wasn't acting in this way of a sense of oppression from white folks, although the specter of oppression was there. He was acting in this way as a tactic which would propel him and his career forward in many ways. And I think that's interesting. Kind of not quite an antithesis to Jack Johnson, but kind of showing the different paths that someone might be able to take as a black athlete at this time. And I was fascinated to learn that towards the end of his high school career, Saul and his brother Ben published a memoir. Not many people who are at 17, 18 are publishing memoirs. What compelled them to do this and what did that kind of signal?
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Brian Halstos
Right. Excuse me. I think that they address this early in the memoir and I should have had it out here where I read their exact words. But in a nutshell, they state that they saw writing this book as a tool to get them into higher education, that they saw this as kind of what they needed to do in order to get into a college, which might seem really shocking because we don't expect to have to write a book to get into college these days. But at that time, it was so unusual for, well, for anyone. It was not the common thing to do. But especially if you're African American, there were not many opportunities and it was extremely rare to complete high school, for one thing, but then you go on to college. And so they felt like this is one way that's going to draw the attention and prove that they are college worthy. And this again, kind of pushing back against attitudes that in the broader society that would exclude black athletes from predominantly white schools, or at least not from HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities at that time. I think also the address you asked about, what it symbolizes, and they address that as well. They say that they are aiming to get a higher education to go to college because they want to be race leaders. They want to be leaders of their race. And so they see this is. Will help them achieve that goal to go out and become race leaders. And that's why even from that early Age. And that's when I talk about Saul being a civil rights hero. I think it was, you know, that was on his mind that he. That sports is this tool that he can use. He's really good at it, and it's a way that he can open doors for, well, himself, but also for others and others in his community and bring people with him as he. As he. When he opens these doors. And so I think that was. I think it symbolizes that intentionality to be a leader from that early age.
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Craig Gill
I wonder if you have any reflections on the. What that memoir was like as a source for a historian. I feel like anyone who writes biographies or who writes about athletes, it's very rare to have an insight into their psyche. Although he was already prominent at this point, probably prior to the peak of his powers. What was that like as a source? How did you kind of use that? I'm just intrigued from a kind of practice point of view.
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Brian Halstos
Right. Well, I'm so grateful that we have it, and I'm grateful that the only extant copy is in. Or as far as I know, is in the archive here at ud. I'd heard of another friend who had researched Saul Butler. Said he found out that there had been one at a library down in Rock island, and they had pitched it at some point not too long ago. Yes, it's really, really. We were both heartbroken. So, as far as I know, it's the only surviving cop. I'll say it's a confusing source in that it's hard to know how much of it is. Well, I'll say this oftentimes, when this book was talked about in newspapers, including the Chicago Defender, Black Press, but also local newspapers around the area, it would be either attributed to both Saul and Ben, and sometimes it would be attributed to, you know, that Ben, his older brother, was the author of the book. And so it's telling Saul's story from the first person. But we don't know exactly, you know, who necessarily is doing the writing at all times and who's kind of controlling the narrative fully. So that makes it a little more complicated. And I address that in the book somewhat, but we get a sense of maybe what this, you know, the two brothers together, what's kind of on their mind. I had a friend here, a colleague, John Bars, who teaches English, who several years ago had written. Had drafted a piece where he had brought in some of the sources, literary sources, that kind of gave a little perspective on how we might understand this particular text. And then I'd done additional research and digging or whatnot, and so to try to understand it better. But it's confusing and I wish. Well, I don't know. I guess I'm happy that we have it, but it just makes it tough to tease out exactly how much of this is Saul or how much of this is his brother, who took a little bit more of a. He was more of. What's the word? You know, a cheering squad for, you know, someone who might be a little more prone to brag about his brother or whatnot, tell the story a little differently. There's a. There's an interesting piece toward the end where, you know, Saul or whoever's writing it says, yeah, my brother used to beat me racing all the time. And I thought, you know, was that a line that Saul put in there? Or is that something his brother putting that he was faster than his little brother at one point? But. But, yeah, that's. Yeah, so it was. It was. It was fun writing that chapter. And I felt that, well, there's. There's a chapter that's. That it focuses largely on the book and kind of what was behind that. And, um. So I'm not sure if I answered your question.
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Craig Gill
Yeah, you did. You did, definitely. So. So with that book, you said that they were. Part of their intention was for. To get them open doors to colleges, perhaps. And it was intriguing to see that, like there is with star athletes today. There was some speculation in the media about where Saul Butler and his brother would take their athletic talents in college. And he ended up at what was then called Dubuque German College. How did he end up there? And how did life change for him when he enrolled there?
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Brian Halstos
Right. So, yeah, he was going to go to. He was going to go to Northwestern University in Evanston or just north of Chicago. And he had competed in some prestigious regional events and had dominated, had become the, you know, the best athlete at the meets for a couple years. And so the athletic director, Louis Omer, was sending him just these very effusive letters of praise and saying, oh, you're going to come here and I'm going to get you into the Olympics in the 1916 Olympics, which, of course, they never happened, but he ended up not going to Northwestern. And I don't know why, other than I speculate that, because I think his first choice was Northwestern. He also had written about going to Harvard and so some interest in going to Harvard University. And there's one or two other schools that were mentioned. It was never mentioned. Dubuque was never mentioned. I don't know that it was on his radar. My sense is that once he entered ud, there was a newspaper article that said he's going to be here in Dubuque for one year. So then he's going to go on to another school. He was going to kind of take care of some of his preparatory classes or coursework that other students entering Northwestern or entering Harvard would have taken previously. So he's kind of come here to kind of fill some of those gaps, maybe taking a language course or two or, you know, it's not entirely clear. I've looked through. I spent a fair amount of time looking at, like, what the. What their requirements were at Harvard, in Northwestern at that time. And that's kind of what I'm gathering. And then when he made that statement, he found out about Dubuque, apparently from a graduate from the seminary who had seen him play in high school, and according to this graduate's story, found him shining shoes in the Quad Cities, either Rock island or Davenport, and told them about UD and encouraged him to come up here. And there's another telling of the story that comes from the President, who was here at that time, in a book that the president wrote about 10 years later. And in that book, he presents Saul Butler as sounding very entitled and kind of like, I'm a big deal and you should be so lucky to have me go to your school. I'm a bit suspicious of that particular telling. And I suggest that maybe his brother was there and maybe Ben had used some language like, do you recognize how big a deal this guy is? And the president talks about how. Well, I told him that if he came here and he got injured, he'd still have a place to stay. And that that won him over, that even if I get injured, I'll have a place which. That makes sense, if you hear that, and finishing your college degree and knowing that you. You will be there to. Until you finish. So I think when he got here, he probably was looking to stay for a year and go somewhere else. And my sense is that he found that it actually was a really good place to be. And I talk about that in the. The three chapters that kind of COVID his years in Dubuque and why that is. And I could speak more about that, but maybe I'll.
- [30:09]
Craig Gill
Yeah. And so, yeah, this is kind of the time of his college career is a time of great upheaval in the country. It's the First World War, there's the influenza, and, of course, all amid the backdrop of a rising tide of white supremacy. How did he navigate this tumultuous time. And what was his athletic career like at that point also?
- [30:31]
Brian Halstos
Yes, so it was a very tumultuous time. It was a time he enters college at the time that the Birth of the Nation, this very infamous film by D.W. griffin, who is incredibly powerful and incredibly influential, and also sends these very nasty, hateful messages anti. Anti black messages, as well as coming out at that time. So, yeah, a very difficult time in the country, especially for people of color. And I think he navigated it by staying connected with his home community, with the black community at home, and returning. He'd return home and get support through that. When he traveled for his track meets, sometimes those were to Pittsburgh, sometimes those were to New York, sometimes those were, you know, across the country to Chicago. He would. He would meet with other African American athletes and connect with black communities there. So that's a piece of it. But I think at home, where he's spending most of his time, or his new college home, he found a place that embraced him in a way that you probably wouldn't find at many other schools at that time. Dubuque German College, which is now University of Dubuque, was made up largely of international students. The church was Presbyterian, and its mission at that time was to bring in people from around the world. And when you're there in college, you're going to chapel on a regular basis and you're going up dressed up and whatnot. So it took its Christian identity very seriously, and it took this idea of we're all of one blood very seriously, this notion that, you know, all humanity is one in Christ and lived up to that in some powerful ways. And so I feel like even though he and his brother were the only black college students at UD at that time, he was embraced in ways you don't see at other predominantly white schools or non black, non HBCUs. And so he's involved in clubs and activities and cultural events. And there's a number of photos that you find in the yearbooks that show him, you know, next to white women and in clubs with. With white women. And. And again, at a time when that was dangerous for many black men to be in the presence of. Of white women in. In much of the country. And. And he's wrote the. You know, there's things in the yearbooks where he's writing pieces and was just really embraced. And he get this kind of. Also kind of a playful spirit that people have with him. And so I think maybe staying on the campus was a safe space for him to be and just staying connected with the African American community. But it was a dangerous time for anyone who's black. So I think you're kind of at that time living with. You need to be aware of where you are at all times and how you present yourself. But I think those are two ways.
- [33:22]
Craig Gill
Yeah. And in 1919, he competed in the Inter Allied Games in France. And this is kind of like almost like the centerpiece of his athletic career up to this point. How did this symbolism of a black man competing for the US on an international stage compare with the reality of his experience and that of other African Americans at the time he.
- [33:50]
Brian Halstos
Or maybe I'll start with the organizers. This Inter Allied Games is sometimes referred to as the Army Olympics. It was this big event where all the Allied powers at the end of World War I come together to have a competition, kind of Olympic style competition. And there were tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of US Soldiers that are still over in Europe at this time. And the army's trying to find a way to keep them preoccupied and not to keep morale up or whatnot. And one of the organizers of this event had saw this as a chance to bring people of different cultural and racial backgrounds together in the spirit of sports. And so in some ways, I think symbolically here we have a black man who's on this team and representing the US and that, oh, look how open minded and this integrated team. But the reality was that was not the reality for black soldiers who were there in Europe during that time. I think Saul Butler seems clear that he had a much better experience because he was with teammates through most of this journey. But when he sailed into Brest harbor in France, and I write about this in the book, there was leave stations or places where, where soldiers could go for rest and relaxation that were not open to the black soldiers who were there. And so a lot of the. So that's just one of many things in these. Just the, the experience of, of black soldiers was in. Of segregation and, and the, the ymca. There were many YMCA huts and opportunities for black soldiers or for white soldiers to, you know, kind of read books and write letters and do fun activities and play games and do things that would take your mind off of the horrors of war or after the war has ended, just give you something to kind of take your mind off your troubles. But that was not open to black students. And so even I think maybe one example, at the Inter Allied Games, there was a YMCA hut, our Inter Allied Games hut, that was called the Melting Pot. And soldiers or Former soldiers from around the world could go and participate in activities there and dance with women and enjoy games and see entertainment and do all these things in the melting pot that's supposed to be bringing all this diversity together. But the only people who were excluded were black people and black soldiers. And so I think that kind of illustrates, you know, the segregation from the US Was brought to Europe through the army forces here.
- [36:35]
Craig Gill
Yeah. And so he returns back to Dubuque and to the US after the Games, and he's building up to the next major event, which is the 1920 Olympics. And you frame what happens there and his kind of subsequent move to Chicago as almost the third. At the start of the third act of his life. I wonder if you can set the stage by telling us what happened at the 1920 Olympics. And then how did this kind of mark a change from what happened before, and what path did he embark upon at that point?
- [37:11]
Brian Halstos
One thing that Butler, his greatest fame came from track and field. Even though he was an amazing football player, it was really where his was widely recognized as through track and field and was going there hands down, favored again to win the gold medal there. And so when he was injured, it was. I think that was kind of the. We start to see the shift where he starts moving away from track and field and not putting all his eggs in that basket. There's much to that story. But we start to see the shift where he starts playing other sports more seriously. You know, he starts playing basket, and actually that gets him in some trouble. It kind of harms his ability to play track and field, and we will probably address that a bit later, and then plays football. But we see this move at this time. He's left college now. He goes and competes in the Olympics. And when he comes home, he moves to the big city for the first time. He's moved to Chicago. And for the rest of his life, he's living in big urban areas, in areas that have been transformed by the Great Migration. Because this is kind of, you know, in the. The early. You know, the first stage of the Great Migration, there are hundreds of thousands of people are moving from the. The rural south to cities and largely to the North. And so Chicago is transformed by a big influx of African Americans. And for the rest of his life, he's living in Chicago, in New York, in Los Angeles, these big urban areas, and in areas that. In communities that are pretty much all black. And so that's. That's a big. A big difference, a big change in his life. And he's moving from having played on integrated teams against and playing with white team or white, you know, people who are where he might be the only black athlete on the team to playing primarily on all black teams. And so we see kind of this. This change as well and kind of this move also just kind of these move toward professionalism into becoming an entrepreneur, kind of trying to test the ways that he can. Can stay in sports in the variety of ways that he can make this career work as an athlete, but also just connected to sports in other ways as well off the playing fields. Because that's at least.
- [39:33]
Craig Gill
How does that. How does that. How do those changes, I guess, or how did he react to those changes to the. To being in the new city, to playing on all black teams? Did this change in any way, the kind of way he acted in terms of racial politics or respectability politics that he had done for the start of his career or how did that play out for him?
- [39:55]
Brian Halstos
Right. I think he is changing and becoming more of. Perhaps a bit more assertive. I guess one way is he is becoming a journalist. And he worked first at the Chicago Defender in the early 1920s and then he spent a lot more time working with the Chicago Bee, another black newspaper in Chicago. And I think he is. Yes, I think that the. He's no longer having to live in a world where he needs to present himself, is humble and, you know, he could be a bit more, I think, himself and say things and speak out against injustice. And he's, you know, he's meeting with people like Paul Robeson, who at this point he is friends with and with others who are outspoken about oppression. I think I wish I really. One of the. You're mentioning just kind of what we have in the record and the archives we have. It's unfortunate that many of the Chicago Bee issues are no longer extent. There's not that many of those that have survived through history. And I think we know a lot more about him and be able to say the ways that he spoke up and was pushing back against segregation. Fortunately, we do have a little bit enough to kind of give us a tantalizing glimpse into the kind of work he did. He had been sending out letters that were kind of addressing in the mid-1920s on the Chicago Bee to white sports figures like Knute Rockne. We have a letter from Knute Rockne and presumably he sent it out to a lot of coaches and people who are in the sport world in white sports figures, asking them about their attitude toward mixed games. And by that he meant games where Black athletes and white athletes are competing on the same field and ask them to weigh in on, you know, what's your attitude toward a black athlete? And, you know, and so we have the responses from Knute Rockne and we have the responses from at the University of Chicago blanking on his name right now. Very famous. The sports field is named after him. I'm just drawing a blank at the moment, but it seemed to be, again, trying to help speak out against this injustice and keep the focus on that. Hey, we have these practices of segregation. Let's look at that and let's consider that. And what is your attitude? Let me get you on record identifying how you feel about black athletes, because I've heard that, that you've not been welcoming black athletes into our school or there's been exclusion or whatnot. So he probably, I mean, just the tantalizing glimpses we get in his efforts through the newspaper suggests that he was much more vocal about racial injustice than he was through what we get in the book he wrote several years earlier, where he just, where he talks about, well, white people will kind of catch on. And once they see what an upstanding person I am, you know, all races have to go through the struggle of kind of people coming to accept them. And we just need to press forward. I think his, the, the language changed quite a bit once he's in the 20s and in these spheres that are largely all African American. And I'm pushing quite a bit harder against racial oppression.
- [43:11]
Craig Gill
I think it's interesting to see. Well, one of the things about Butler's life and the time in which he was prominent is that he goes from being in kind of integrated spaces to being in spaces which are by way, by the fact of segregation, not integrated. And it meant that he would compete in sports that were in the tens and twenties, perhaps they were integrated, but by the thirties and forties they were not. And then it was only towards the late 40s, early 50s that they started to become once again integrated. And I think that you tease that out really well in this and you show how one of the great powers of Jim Crow and white supremacy at the time was being able to try and play up this lie of white supremacy on the sports field. And I think Butler's life is a really good example of this kind of long term trajectory that touched on a few of those areas. And I think by the time the 30s come around, he is starting to wane in terms of his athletic ability. And he turns to boxing at that point. If I'm not mistaken. And the sport that, of course, Jack Johnson was famous for and Butler had in many ways fashioned himself in opposition to Jack Johnson and boxing in general. What brought Butler to that point in his career and how did he navigate that world?
- [44:43]
Brian Halstos
Right. I think that the example of Jack Johnson was probably an example that Butler was always very fascinated with, even when he was a teenager, when he was a young man, and even if he didn't announce it to the world. I mean, at that time, I think that, you know, this idea of someone who's just living life large and just the way he wants to do it and is in your face and bold and brash and whatnot would have been very appealing, especially, you know, a young teenager who's seeing what you can. How you can be in this world if you're champion of the world in boxing. And so I think there's probably some of that, you know, when he's getting in the early 1930s, that that's. That's always been there. And Butler. People commented over the years that Butler in some ways looked like Jack Johnson. He had kind of a round face, similar to or somewhat similar size and similar skin tone and similar build. He's shorter than Jack Johnson, but there were some kind of generic similarities. And so people would point that out in newspaper articles. And he seemed to embrace that in the 1930s, where he would even dress like Jack Johnson and had a very flashy Persona. And if you read some of the articles, he'd moved out to Los Angeles. And I think some of that was a sign of the times. The Olympics were there, 1932. And he was friends with people he had raced with, you know, a decade earlier. And so he's connecting with some of the white athletes and tried to be connected with the. The kind of all the. The excitement in Hollywood and around, you know, LA at that time. And he even became a manager or assistant manager at a club that Jack Johnson had been. Been a part of or had been managing a year or so before that. And so it wasn't. He wasn't subtle about some of the ways he was kind of connecting with. With Jack Johnson. So I think part of it is probably he. That was appealing and here he had a chance in Los Angeles and maybe that was even seen as like, you know, you're trying to get seen. This is the place of Hollywood films. And he made a. A run where it was getting in Hollywood films and that was of interest and where it's kind of to your benefit to be a bit flashy and a Bit bold and make these kind of statements in a location where maybe kind of letting your Jack Johnson side out made sense. It's also during the Depression, and so times are tough. And maybe this is one way that just economic realities. Maybe he thought that this is one way by kind of modeling some of what Jack Johnson did is going to help me put food on the table and stay afloat as well. So it was. Yeah, his Jack Johnson, the way he kind of exhibited and presented you. Most like Jack Johnson are those years when he's in Los Angeles, those four or five years that he's in Los Angeles, it seems like once he comes back to Chicago, some of that bravado is muted a bit or subsides a bit. But it is a very different. He presents himself very differently than he had previously. Even during the 20s, he wasn't. Yeah, it's not like Jack Johnson in the 20s, but that does.
- [47:54]
Craig Gill
And how do his final years play out?
- [47:59]
Brian Halstos
So his final years, he stays connected to sports through the 40s. One thing I find very fascinating is the work he did with youth and working at Washington Park. He was on the south side of Chicago and training the next generation of athletes, just according to the. The. The NFL player I spoke with who said he. They. He would teach the boys and then the boys were tasked with going teaching the girls. And so that everyone had kind of learned some of these lessons that. That he and other members of this group called the Old Timers Club were a part of. And this Old Timers Club had figures like Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens and some of the, you know, great black athletes who are living in the Chicago area are coming together. It's kind of a club, but it's also, you know, one of its big tasks is being a mentor for youth and giving them role models and training them in parks and to go and getting them into track and field events and opening doors to high competitions that they wouldn't have access to through their school necessarily. And so he stays active. His final years we don't know a lot about because he was no longer. By the late, very end of the 40s and into the 50s, he was working as a manager bouncer at a bar on the south side of Chicago. And according to a friend of his who was a journalist who wrote in his obituary after he died at the end of 1954, said that he didn't talk about the early days. He kind of kept that to himself. He let bygones be got. Bygones. Or it was almost like he. Yeah, he wouldn't speak about that much. And I don't know exactly how to interpret that other than maybe it was. It could have been kind of a sadness, you know, that he was someone who was one injury away from being a gold medalist in the Olympics and that would have opened doors that weren't open to him otherwise and opportunities that. So do you want me to share kind of his final. I mean.
- [50:07]
Craig Gill
Yeah, yeah, sure. It would be good to hear how his life.
- [50:12]
Brian Halstos
Right. So he's a bouncer in this bar and one night a man comes in who's drunk, who has been a customer there in the past, and he starts harassing some of the women who are serving or working there that night. And so Butler kicks him out. And a few minutes later this man comes back with a pistol in hand and starts firing at Saul Butler. He had been not happy to be kicked out. And so Butler restrong grabbed a gun behind the counter and fired back. And so they both over the next day succumbed to their bullet wounds. And so he died in a gunfight at the very end there, but in kind of protecting women who had been harassed at the bar at that time. So it was, I believe the first time in and that an NFL player had been. Had been killed or by that kind of violence. But it was a unfortunate end to his life. And I think that had he lived, we also might know much more about him because he could have had. He might have had a memoir he's working on or autobiography he's working on or there was mention of scrapbooks that he had been keeping earlier in life and maybe those would have survived, but he didn't get a chance to kind of tell his story. And. And so he died at 59. And his sister came or sisters. He had a ceremony there in Chicago and then his body was brought back to Wichita and he's buried in a cemetery where his mom and his three siblings are buried. His dad is buried in a cemetery in Hutchinson with. With Civil War veterans or veterans portion of a cemetery.
- [52:01]
Craig Gill
And how do you reflect on his kind of his legacy in the black sporting pantheon and the kind of unique lens that he offers to historians today?
- [52:13]
Brian Halstos
Yeah, one thing I think he to me, and I'm sure there are other examples and maybe if I dig further, spend more time, but it just feels like he was extremely long lasting. For one thing, when we see these other athletes who are maybe playing in their teens and 20s are leaving the game and I mean we can mention, I mean Paul robeson by his 20s is going off in other directions you know, become international stardom as a. As a singer and as an actor and civil rights, you know, there's all kinds of different things. And. But Fritz Pollard, who was a great college football player and then became the first African American to. To coach a team into quarterback in the NFL once he was pushed out of the league. Oh, and really quickly, this is a quick aside. Saul Butler and Paul. Saul Butler and Fritz Pollard were the first. It was the first time in pro football when two black quarterbacks faced each other when they competed against each other in the 1920s. But after that game, Fritz Pollard is pushed out of, cut from his team. And that was the last he was in the NFL. But Fritz Pollard went on to business success and it did all kinds of things. So he kind of left athletics and. And there's others. But Saul Butler stayed in the game. I mean, literally was playing sports for a long time and at a very high level and into the 1930s and into his. Well into his 30s. And it sounded like he was still playing semi pro football in his 40s. You know, at a time when you don't have many pads. You know, it's a pretty, pretty rough, pretty rough game. But even aside from just staying in the game, literally on the playing fields for a long time, which kind of sets him apart, I think he stayed in the game. Just things associated with sports by. As a sports journalist and as a boxing. I don't know if I mentioned, but yeah, he became a boxing trainer and when he went to Los Angeles and. And in coaching youth and working with women on all women's teams and just finding ways to stay in the sports realm for a very, very long time, I mean, he was. He kept us going and through into the 1940s. So I think in terms of just the longevity and the variety of sports, I mean the. There's just a number of sports he's connected with, including tennis and boxing and auto racing. Even he had a connection with auto racing as well. And I think one thing that we can take away from his story too, is just all the ways he connected with others too, to show that this wasn't that there were many other black athletes during this time. I think just looking at all the ways he touched people in different realms, that this is a collective effort and really illustrates just the team effort to push back against segregated society. And he was just following his story. You see all the many ways that many athletes and others that may be forgotten that they were part of his team and pushing back and seeing sports as a way to Kind of innovate and create an integrated sporting realm. He just is a great person to follow in watching that journey.
- [55:17]
Craig Gill
Awesome. Well, Brian, you've been very generous with your time. I'm wondering what you're working on now that you've this kind of long term project is out in the world. Have you got any new projects in the helper?
- [55:31]
Brian Halstos
Really quickly we're working on creating a memorial for a man. This is not necessarily an academic project. This is more just our community base. But creating a memorial for a man who was lynched in Dubuque in 1840. So we have artists selected and we're going to choose our artist very soon. And so that's something I'm working on kind of in the community realm academically. Had been the past couple of years working on a book about walking and kind of the politics of walking while black and tentatively titled Race Walking. I have a wonderful subtitle. I just can't think of it right now, but just trust me, it's great. And so working on that. And then another project that I've been thinking about for a long time and now that this Saul Butler project is done, looking at it more intentionally looking at doing like a graphic novel on the subject of my dissertation, which is on a black woman who wrote A Passion Play and it features she is from the south and escaped to the or. She and her husband kind of literally escaped to the north to Chicago and then directed this for years and years. And I feel like I can see that being a wonderful teaching tool if I can find an artist, a graphic artist who can kind of harmonize with my vision on what this looks like. Her name is Willisanders Jones, I'll say that.
- [56:53]
Craig Gill
Okay, that's all very interesting and exciting. Thanks so much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed chatting about Saul Butler. I love the book and congrats on it being out in the world now. And yeah, thanks for your time.
- [57:06]
Brian Halstos
Thank you so much for interest, Greg. I really enjoyed this. So thank you.
- [57:22]
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Craig Gill
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