He was up by 5 each morning to feed the family’s cows, while his older sister, Virginia, handled the chickens. The current Tupelo High School football stadium.įrom his front porch in the tiny community of Palmetto outside of Tupelo, a young Frank could see the familiar icons of the rural South: cotton fields on one side of the street and a church on the other. Dowsing’s story has been neglected, some say, not only because he was black, but also because he was gay. He would not be the first African-American pioneer to be written out of history. No one was more important to the integration of athletics in Mississippi, and where in the country could that have been more difficult? And yet today, his name has faded from the state’s collective memory. Classmates, white and black, remember Dowsing as a shining light: smart, charismatic, kind and strong.īy the time he turned 24, Dowsing had already built a life to remember. Mississippi State before being drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles and attending medical school. He enrolled at Mississippi State University, where he became the school’s first black football player, earned All-America honors as a defensive back, was named to the Academic All-America team and was voted by fellow students as Mr. Versatile by his peers and graduated sixth in his class. He played for the varsity the next week, and by the time he graduated, Dowsing had earned all-conference honors in football, basketball and track led the basketball team to a state championship set a state record in the 100-yard dash represented Mississippi at a national 4-H conference was voted Mr. Dowsing, one of five African-American students to desegregate Tupelo High that fall 50 years ago, kept on running.