Johnny Bright Incident

The Johnny Bright Incident took place on this day in 1951 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Two college football players were involved: the white player Wilbanks Smith of Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), and the black player Johnny Bright of Drake University. Long story short: The white guy, at the behest of one of his coaches, beats up the black guy for no reason other than race. Smith ends up breaking Bright's jaw.

Two Des Moines Register photographers captured a sequence of six pictures showing the incident. The sequence won the photographers the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, then made the cover of Life Magazine.