Recently while reading the book "Not By A Longshot" I learned a piece of Kentucky Derby history that I thought was particularly interesting.
The 1967 Derby is known for the upset victory of the 30-1 longshot Proud Clarion, but the untold story is the surge of local activism around housing issues that threatened to shut the Derby down in the weeks before the first Saturday in May.
Louisville was known as one of the few southern cities that integrated without unrest and drama. However, despite a progressive law on integration in public spaces, Louisville still had segregated neighborhoods and no way for black families to move into white neighborhoods.
In late 1965, Louiville's Human Relation Commission recommended that the city's board of aldermen pass a law that protected equal access to all housing in the city. By early 1967, local civil rights leaders had grown weary of watching the aldermen delay and avoid any action on passing such a law. Realizing that it was going to take some escalation to pressure local leaders to get off the stick and pass an equal housing law, the Committee on Open Housing was formed with the goal of organizing a protest movement in the city of Louisville.
The Committee on Open Housing was led by a number of civil rights, religious and community leaders that included the Rev. A.D. King, Martin Luther King's brother. The Southern Christian Leadership Confrence, MLK's organization, pledged to provide support to the Committee in the way of sending full-time organizers down to Lousiville to help the Committee strategize and execute their campaign.
In April 1967 the alderman finally voted on the proposed law and rejected it. This touched off a wave of public protest that the city of Louisville had not yet seen throughout the 1960s. The night of the vote, A.D. King led the hundreds of citizens waiting outside of city hall in an impromptu march that ended in a sit in at the police station. In the coming weeks there were daily marches through all-white south end neighborhoods and confrontations with racist white citizens.
An injunction was soon passed prohibiting the protests, but it was ignored, leading to hundreds of civil disobedience arrests throughout the month of April. Organizers quickly realized that the excitement at Churchill Downs in anticipation of the first Saturday in May was a potential leverage point, and took advantage. Protesters blocked streets to keep horse owners from getting their horses to the barns and to keep punters from getting to the windows. In the week before the Derby, five protesters were able to climb on to the Churchill oval right as the horses were heading in to the final stretch of a race and ran ahead of the horses to disrupt the outcome. The community started to get seriously concerned about how the demonstrations would impact their most important day of the year.
This concern extended right in to the heart of the black community. Right as Martin Luther King himself arrived in Louisville to assist with the protests, a group of black ministers assembled to lobby Dr. King to not disrupt the Derby for fear that it would do more harm than good.
Their lobbying worked. On the morning of the first Saturday in May, Dr. Martin Luther King announced that there would be no disruption of the Derby, but promised to redouble efforts in the coming weeks. Hosea Williams was quoted as saying "Derby or no derby, there's going to be some hell in Louisville until a housing bill is passed."
The movement turned from civil disobedience to voter registration and campaigning. Dr. King and the Committee pledged to support the Democratic ticket, who in turn pledged to pass an open housing bill. In November they swept the Republicans off the board and by December Louisville had passed one of the first open housing laws in the South.
The connection between Dr. King and horseracing doesn't end there, however. As you well know, the following April Dr. King was murdered in Memphis. That same week the horse Dancer's Image won the Governor's Gold Cup at Bowie Race Course. The horse's owner, Peter Fuller, rejected an offer of $1 million to sell the horse. He then went on to donate the $100,000 purse from the race to Coretta Scott King, Dr. King's widow, so that she could continue his work on civil rights and economic justice.
Fuller didn't announce the gift, but word got around anyway and by the time he showed up in Louisville with Dancer's Image he was a pretty unpopular guy among the old guard at the track. Despite his chilly reception and death threats, Fuller saddled his horse on the first Saturday in May and even rehearsed his run to the winner's circle the day before.
Dancer's Image closed from last place to win the race in the final stretch run, his jockey slapping him with his bare hands the entire way after dropping his whip in the backstretch, and Peter Fuller managed to act out his run to the circle to get his picture taken. Not 48 hours later, however, Churchill Downs stripped Dancer's Image of his win because of the detection of bute in his urine sample. Bute was legal at every other track and had been legal in every other Derby both prior to and after 1968. Not only that, but it would have been legal to use bute on the horse 7 days prior to the race and according to the vet, the horse was given bute 6 days and 7 hours prior.
Peter Fuller fought the ruling for years and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his legal battle, but ultimately failed to regain the roses. Officially Dancer's Image is listed as coming in last place and the victory was awarded to Forward Pass. To this day, both Peter Fuller and the jockey, Bobby Ussery, believe they were robbed of the title as retribution for Fuller's gift to Coretta Scott King and his vocal support for civil rights during those turbulent times. Peter Fuller has refused to attend a Derby since, unless, he says, he can arrive with a horse that can win the race.
He says he'll name the horse "Dancer's Revenge."
