{"id":12124,"date":"2019-01-27T20:02:41","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T01:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/?p=12124"},"modified":"2019-01-31T15:59:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T20:59:00","slug":"key-member-of-71-titans-leaves-legacy-of-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/?p=12124","title":{"rendered":"Key Member of \u201971 Titans Leaves Legacy of Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Julius Campbell, a key member of the 1971 Virginia High School League State Championship team whose win and collaboration inspired Disney to immortalize Alexandria\u2019s story of desegregation, has died\u00a0\u2014 48 years after he took the actions that created heroes out of T.C. Williams\u2019 football team.<\/p>\n

Campbell, who graduated from T.C. Williams in 1973, had been in the hospital for many months, where he received regular visits from other \u201971 players on the team. He died of organ failure on Friday. He was often seen around Parker-Gray Memorial Stadium signing items to raise funds for the team.<\/p>\n

Julius was very, very instrumental on that team at simply getting kids to just talk to one another, kids who never talked to kids from another race their entire lives. By doing so, they learned many things about each other that were not passed down to them, and for that, the world owes Julius a debt of gratitude,\u201d said Herman Boone, who was brought in to coach the Titans in 1971.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"T.C.The continuing issues at football games<\/a> in the late 1960s and early 1970s were so bad that the school division moved all Friday night games to afternoons. In the summer of 1971, Superintendent John C. Albohm presented and implemented his 6-2-2-2 grade plan that fully integrated Alexandria\u2019s three high schools aimed at meeting the standards set by the federal government to ensure Alexandria continued to receive federal funding. By the fall of 1971, T.C. Williams was fully integrated for grades 11 and 12.<\/p>\n

While the decision to appoint an interracial coaching team in the form of Head Coach Herman Boone and Assistant Coach Bill Yoast fostered an atmosphere of racial respect on the team, it was the players\u2019 willingness to actively promote their new-found friendships that made the difference at T.C. Williams. That was largely created at the Gettysburg pre-season training camp and continued throughout the fall when members of the football team patrolled the hallways wearing team jerseys to help minimize conflict at the school.<\/p>\n

When the school year started my dad did not sit next to Julius\u2019 dad. By the time the season progressed, the next thing I knew my dad was sitting on Julius\u2019 dad\u2019s lap. That\u2019s what made this story\u00a0\u2014 not that we were good football players,\u201d said \u201971 Titan team player Mike Lynch.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The success of the T.C. Williams football team in the Virginia state championship made the reorganization of the school system easier to accept all around. John Stubbins, ACPS director of secondary education in 1971, told the Washington Post, \u201cIt\u2019s pretty obvious there\u2019s been a tremendous spillover into the entire system because of that team. The parents were thrilled to death to see these kids getting along and it\u2019s really helped. A lot of minds have been changed at the dinner table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, members of the \u201971 team have helped keep the legacy alive by reaching out to talk to the community about that time.<\/p>\n

Mike Lynch shared a favorite story of his teammate. Julius, who went on to work in animal control, described one of his favorite \u201cappearances.” He was dispatched to a home to deal with an animal in the attic. As he went back and forth dealing with the problem, he saw that a young boy was watching the movie Remember the Titans<\/em> on television. After he finished his work, he introduced himself as the character on the screen.<\/p>\n

Like that movie. son?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, yeah! It’s my\u00a0favorite! Seen it a hundred times!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well… I’m Julius Campbell. It’s nice to meet you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Julius signed the boy\u2019s football and left him a picture, and then went back to his work.<\/p>\n

That was just like Julius. He was just so humble,\u201d said Lynch.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ACPS is currently running a series of posts to mark the 65th\u00a0anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the subsequent slow path towards the desegregation of Alexandria\u2019s schools. You can read the posts that also contain video content of the \u201971 Titans talking about their part in Brown v. Board: What Does it Mean for Alexandria?<\/a> and Brown v. Board and Football: Both a Problem and a Solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The funeral service for Campbell is Saturday, February 8 at Alfred Street Baptist Church, 301 S. Alfred Street, Alexandria. The viewing is at 10 a.m. followed by a service at 11 a.m. The family has requested donations to the \u201971 Original Titans Scholarship Fund<\/a> in lieu of flowers.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julius Campbell, a key member of the 1971 State Championship team whose win and collaboration inspired Disney to immortalize Alexandria\u2019s story of desegregation, has died \u2014 48 years after he took the actions that created heroes out of T.C. Williams\u2019 football team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,40,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acps","category-achs","category-alumni-profile","category-announcements"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 12:54:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12124"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12162,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12124\/revisions\/12162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}