Frank Dowsing was a hero in Tupelo, Mississippi.
"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.
He would not be the first African-American pioneer to be written out of history. But there’s more to it. Dowsing’s story has been neglected, some say, not only because he was black, but also because he was gay. And because he died of AIDS." Andrew Maraniss