By Melanie Eversley
Fifty years ago this fall, Harrison Davis, Stanley Land, Kent Merritt and John Rainey became the first Black scholarship student athletes at the University of Virginia when they integrated the football team.
Davis, now 69 and living in Port Charlotte, Fla., tells The Virginian-Pilot that he and the three others will be honored by U.Va. on Oct. 16 when the Cavaliers play Duke homecoming weekend. Davis says the recognition is a long time coming. The quartet was honored at a U.Va. dinner several years ago but there was nothing in the school’s awards cases that acknowledged their accomplishment.
“I walked around and looked and didn’t see a thing,” Davis said. “As of now, they don’t have any indicators as to when the first Black guys were even there.”
Davis was a star athlete in Pilot territory in high school in Hampton, Va. He turned down offers to play ball for Purdue, Wake Forest, Army and Navy and more because his mother wanted him to stay in the state.
He and his three teammates all graduated in four years in spite of a charged racial atmosphere.
“The fact that we not only survived but prospered in that environment I think was pretty significant,” Davis said.
