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Jerral On the first day of classes, six black students at North Little Rock High were attempting to integrate when a group of white males congregated at the front door and obstructed their path. Wayne Jones, a sophomore with a crew cut, made himself at home with this bunch.

This football season, The Washington Post is looking into the NFL’s previous history of not moving black coaches up to administration roles, despite the fact that black players are the league’s main source of revenue.

Jones was a few yards away from the scene as the six black youngsters were being shoved and pushed away by the mob leaders, who were also chanting racist epithets. A brief video clip demonstrated this. A black student named Richard Lindsey said that he once felt someone in the crowd touch the back of his neck with their hand. From behind him, he heard someone exclaim, “I want to know how a nigger feels.” Prospective recruits were deterred by the thuggish antagonism.

The incident occurred 65 years ago, on September 9, 1957. A larger-scale integration initiative took place at Little Rock Central High, a few miles away in the nation’s capital, the same month. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal forces to help black students carve out new territory outside of the invading mob at the Little Rock Nine event, which is seen as a turning point in the history of the civil rights movement. It concealed the appalling conditions that were occurring simultaneously at Jones’s high school across the Arkansas River; most of these instances have been generally, but not completely, forgotten by history.

Photographer William P. Straeter of the Associated Press captured the image of a young Jones wearing a striped shirt. As he previously said in a Washington Post interview, he is seen squinting to get a closer look and “looking like a little burrhead.” In one month, he would turn fifteen. He had been working out twice a day and lifting weights since August in an effort to make the school’s football B squad. Given that coach Jim Albright had said he “didn’t want to see any of you knot-heads in front of that school tomorrow,” there might have been issues.

Even after receiving such advice, Jones persisted. He was positioned on the higher landing at the school’s double-leaf entrance doors, close to the core of the conflict. The human barrier, which was intended to stop anyone from entering based only on the color of their skin, had his face positioned at the rear.

Jones asserted that he was not participating, only watching. “I don’t think anyone, myself included, was aware of the details beforehand. He said that was more of an anomaly.

But based on Straeter’s images, it looks like Jones had to circumvent the North Little Rock Six to reach the top of the stairs before the black students finished their march to the schoolhouse door. Although most of the people living in the neighborhood were teenagers, Jones gave the conventional version of the incident, which claimed that the six young black boys were the victims of older white supremacists.

Jerry Jones is still one of the most recognizable people in the country at the age of 80. The boy from North Little Rock owns the Dallas Cowboys. As Jones said after owning the team in 1989, “The Cowboys are America,” and there’s no denying that they’ve eclipsed the New York Yankees to become the most profitable and beloved sports franchise in the country. The Cowboys are the team with the most fans, and NFL games are the highest-rated television programs.

Jones is the only star with Texas-sized allure, her soft Arkansas drawl giving every syllable a wonderful sting. It is no coincidence that his football house is referred to as “Jerry World” in casual conversation. Being a hands-on owner, he speaks to the horde of reporters in the locker room after a game and serves as his own general manager. But he’s more than that. Considering his winning approach and the team’s accomplishments, he might be the NFL’s most important figure. He is a performer who never quits, and his self-worth of $11 billion is equal to his fortune. Roger Goodell is sometimes characterized as a more powerful “shadow commissioner,” even though he is the actual commissioner. He hasn’t refrained from further transforming the league to fit his vision by leveraging his power as a maestro of finance and culture.

There are concerns around racism, power, and the status of black coaches in a sport where the majority of players are not black and where there are only three black full-time head coaches. Jones may wind up serving as the benchmark for the NFL’s terrible hiring, advancement, and assistance of African American coaches.

He has a dismal history of missing crucial appointments. Jones has had eight head coaches over his thirty-three-year ownership of the franchise. Since then, the franchise has only had two black offensive and defensive coordinators; none were appointed after 2008. These are entry-level roles that prepare candidates for head coaching roles. Maurice Carthon, the offensive coordinator under Bill Parcells in 2003 and 2004, said he got along well with both Jones and any other owner, despite the fact that they were both from Arkansas. But he never thought he had a real shot at being the head coach. “I can’t say that I was near at any moment,” said Carthon. “I think they’re all falling short.” Carthon left his position as a coach in 2012 after seven seasons.