Bobby Mitchell entered Washington Redskins’ history in the offseason of 1962. I had entered the world about six months earlier, and as such, most of my earliest impressions of Mitchell came from my older brothers. In time, I would come to know a great deal more about Mitchell’s impact as both a player and a man. I recently learned about Mitchell’s early Redskin days from Andrew O’Toole’s fascinating study, “Fight for Old DC: George Preston Marshall, the Integration of the Washington Redskins, and the Rise of a New NFL,” published in 2016.
Bobby Mitchell is often cited as the Redskins’ first black player.