DES MOINES, Iowa — Frank "Kinney" Holbrook made history as Iowa's first Black college athlete in the 1890s, and now several passionate Iowans are working to help keep his story alive.
Holbrook's story already sounded like something out of a movie. His father escaped from slavery during the Civil War and moved to the town of Tipton, where his son was born.
Holbrook started making his mark early. He became Tipton's first Black high school graduate—and got the opportunity to make history again shortly after, when he joined the University of Iowa football team.
"[He was] the first Black collegiate athlete in Iowa history. He led the Hawkeyes to their first Conference football championship in 1896," said Josh Meier, co-founder of the Frank "Kinney" Holbrook Memorial Society. "He became one of the star backs in the nation."
Another former Hawkeye, Quinn Early, is now telling Holbrook's story in the documentary "The Shoulders of Giants."
"I got to follow in his footsteps, along with all the other Black athletes that followed Frank Kinney Holbrook," Early said.
Earlier this month, Hope+Elim church in Des Moines hosted a screening of the filmed, featuring a Q&A with Early. Dayna Chandler, who helped organize the screening for a group called Black Girls Do Bike Des Moines, told Local 5 how much Holbrook's story mattered to her.
"As a young girl growing up in Iowa, you just didn't hear stories about what black people did in that capacity... The history that we were told, was more of the civil rights, Jim Crow and all the things that we all know," Chandler said.
Holbrook died from a sudden heart attack in 1916, at just 39 years old. More than 100 years later, his story is finally being shared with a new generation of Iowans.
"It's so important that we preserve that for our young people. It's an issue around legacy, it's an issue of restoring an element of dignity," Chandler said.
Today's screening was just one a part of the effort to preserve Holbrook's legacy. The Frank "Kinney" Holbrook Memorial Society is working on fundraising to bring a statue of Holbrook to his hometown of Tipton.
You can watch "The Shoulders of Giants" here.
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