Forty-six years ago today, July 25, 1968, Perry Wallace addressed Vanderbilt chancellor Alexander Heard and other administrators in a specially called meeting of the university’s Human Relations Committee. Earlier that spring, Wallace had completed his first year of varsity basketball, becoming the first African-American basketball player in SEC history. Wallace’s remarks were equal parts poetic, raw, painful and helpful, providing such a fascinating look at his state-of-mind at this point in his pioneering stint that I devote nearly all of Chapter 23 of Strong Inside to this scene. Discovering the transcript of his remarks – typed by Wallace himself in 1968 — was one of my most exciting moments in the eight years I worked on the book.
