In December 1961, the URI men’s basketball team played at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Ga. The team’s leading scorer, Charlie Lee, didn’t know it at the time, but he was making history as the first Black player to participate in a college game in the state of Georgia.

By Bob Herzog

For some today, it may be hard to believe that was the case as recently as 1961. In fact, the first URI player to board the bus, Danny Nilsson ’64, seeing that there were no empty seats in the front, calmly walked to the back of the bus and sat down among the Black riders. The other four players followed. “Blond hair, blue eyes, milky white skin. That was Danny,” remembers Rothstein. “You should have seen the looks. But nothing happened. We just got looks.”

Rothstein says the players’ friend also told them about something more sinister than seating arrangements on public transportation. “He said to make sure someone watches the parking lot. If you see buses coming in, it’s the Ku Klux Klan and there’s going to be a problem,” Rothstein says. “We told the last guy on the bench, who never played, that when we were warming up, ‘You’re going to be in the lobby until the game starts. If there are buses coming in, you better let us know.’” There were no buses.

Recalling the Oglethorpe game, Lee says, “There were no incidents before, during, or after the game. No derogatory remarks by the players or the fans, none whatsoever. But I didn’t have the kind of performance that I wanted, and we lost the game.”

Lee says he did not learn of his role as a trailblazer until his mother sent him an article a month later from Jet magazine. “The magazine said it was the first time an intercollegiate sporting event was integrated in the state of Georgia. That was it. That’s how I found out,” Lee says. “So I didn’t think of myself as a pioneer. Being from the Northeast, it was no big deal playing an integrated basketball game. We did it all the time.”

Lee did not see the Sports Illustrated item in the weekly magazine’s Jan. 8, 1962, edition that read, “Before a packed house in Atlanta, Charlie Lee of Rhode Island made history. The Negro Ram star competed in the first non-segregated collegiate athletic contest in Georgia, possibly opening the way for the acceptance of Negro players on southern teams. Oglethorpe, the host team, beat the Yankee Conference champions 64-47.” “Of course, I feel a sense of pride, but there is a little bit of frustration and anger,” Lee admits. “I was upset that they never told me before or after. Why didn’t they say anything to me? You know something? Nobody made a big deal about that back then.”

But the media once again helped to shine a light on Lee’s accomplishment some years later when The Providence Journal published an article about race and college basketball, highlighting the importance of Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso) and its all-Black starting team defeating mighty all-white Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA Tournament championship game. “The paper, says Lee, “told the story of the all-Black team from Texas that made history, and wrote, ‘What about Charlie Lee?’ That’s when it came to the forefront for me.”

With a chuckle, Lee repeats, “What about Charlie Lee! When you’re young and naïve, it doesn’t dawn on you. But as the years pass by, it does. You don’t realize the magnitude of what just happened, and the historical perspective associated with it.”

For the mild-mannered Lee, a native of Englewood, N.J., who is happily retired after a long career working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it took until this past winter to share his place in history with his family. But only after an inquiry from his wife, Connie, whose church, the Church of God of Prophecy in Robbins, N.C., was organizing a project for Black History Month in February.

“The church was doing articles about certain events that occurred in our lifetime. She was asked to think about a significant achievement in Black history, so I said, ‘Tell them about your husband!’” Lee says with a laugh. “I told her the story and she had no idea. I never talked about it.”

Lee, who played for URI from 1960–63 and averaged 16 points and six rebounds per game during his varsity career, still laughing, describes his wife’s reaction. “She was aghast. She said, ‘Oh, wow!’ and she rushed to share the story with the rest of the family. Some of my nieces and nephews said to me, ‘You’re famous!’ I just laughed and said, ‘You know, it happened a long time ago.’”

But the impact and memories linger. “When I told my grandson about it, he got kind of wide-eyed,” Lee says. “He was ecstatic when he heard my story, and he went right out and shared it with his friends. He’s 6 feet, 6 inches tall and played ball at Fayetteville State. He coached a little AAU basketball and he told some of his coaching friends. That made me feel good; gave me a sense of pride.”

The events of that winter also gave Lee and his teammates some firsthand, eye-opening experiences about race relations in the South in the early 1960s. A week after their game in Atlanta, the Rams flew to Miami for a game against the University of Miami, where Lee recalls spending much of his time soaking his sprained ankle in a whirlpool. They stayed at the Lombardy Inn Hotel in Miami Beach, and were given most of the week off to enjoy themselves. “It turns out that even in Miami, they had racial restrictions back then,” Lee says.

That became quite evident the first night in Florida. “A bunch of us go out to eat, including Charlie,” Rothstein recalls. “We go walking down the street and everybody’s looking at us. Well, we’re a basketball team. Everybody’s 6-foot-3 or bigger—except me (Rothstein is 5-foot-8). So it’s not unusual to get stares. We go out and we’re walking around town.”

The URI contingent was unaware that the stares from locals had little to do with seeing a group of tall basketball players. “Well into the 1980s, there was a law on the books in Miami Beach that Blacks weren’t allowed on the streets after sundown,” Rothstein says. “We go to a place called Wolfies. It was like a Jewish deli—it was a popular spot. We walk in. All the heads turn. We thought it was because we’re a basketball team, but the truth was, nobody ever saw a Black guy in Wolfies at night. It was different times. Everybody’s looking at Charlie. But we don’t know that. We were very naïve. We had no understanding. We found that out after the fact. But nothing bad happened.”

Lee says he was unaware that his saga had been told by Rothstein during a postgame segment called “Speak the Truth” last season on a Miami Heat TV broadcast. “With all that went on in the nation with the racial strife, they asked each of the broadcasters for a story that concerns racism,” Rothstein says. “That segment on Charlie was part of a postgame show, and it eventually got to YouTube.”

When Lee reflects on those events from 60 years ago, he is touched by the solidarity shown by his teammates on the streets of Atlanta and Miami and by Rothstein’s airing and sharing of those moments. “The thing I remember about that Miami incident is how upset my teammates were,” Lee says. “Of course it makes me feel good that they had my back.”

Lee, choked up, adds, “Probably the most emotional thing for me is the fact that a former teammate [Rothstein] who had a lot of success in the NBA remembered me.”

In fact, Rothstein’s revelation started a serendipitous chain reaction. Lee and his family got to watch the segment on YouTube and bask in the afterglow of a slice of history that Lee himself could not enjoy the first time around. And Rothstein got to reconnect with a teammate he had lost touch with years ago and did not even know was still alive. The two shared a long, emotional telephone conversation this summer.

“I didn’t live in Charlie’s skin, so how could I really know how he felt?” Rothstein asks. “We never gave it a real thought—about race. It was basketball. You go out and play. There weren’t that many Black players then, certainly not like today, but it’s not like I never played against Black players … I don’t know if proud is the right word, but I was always glad I took part. It was constructive history, so to speak.”

It is history that still resonates today. “There is a mix of emotions that comes with learning about Charlie Lee breaking the color barrier for the state of Georgia,” says Shane Donaldson ’99, URI’s current assistant athletic director, media relations. “On one hand, it is a point of pride for the University to have a direct connection to such a significant moment in Georgia’s history. On the other hand, it was only 60 years ago. Charlie Lee, his URI teammates, and the Oglethorpe community took a significant first step, but given the social unrest we continue to see in the country today, there is clearly still work to be done.”

For Lee, the game against Oglethorpe provides a historical footnote to a successful college basketball career that he now can proudly share with his family and friends. He says he is not an intense college basketball fan, despite living close to bluebloods Duke and North Carolina, but pays attention during the NCAA Tournament.

It’s when watching March Madness on TV that Lee allows himself to rewind his URI playing days. “You know, I played against some Hall of Famers. I’ll have a conversation with friends and I’ll say, ‘I remember playing against Rick Barry at Miami. I remember playing against Lenny Wilkens at Providence College—and they had a center named John Thompson.’ When I look back, I realize I had a pretty interesting career.”

One that made a little history along the way. •

Bob Herzog retired in 2018 after a 46-year career as a sports journalist. He was an award- winning sportswriter and sports editor at Newsday from 1976 until his retirement. He has been teaching sports writing at URI since 2019.

PHOTOS: Jack Sorokin; Courtesy Ron Rothstein and Charlie Lee