As regular readers know, I play the card game bridge and recently I happened to look at some aspects of the history of the game. It is not pretty because the main body that governs the game in the US, the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), was infused with the racism that the country was steeped in, not allowing Black people to join and play, forcing them to start their own organization the American Bridge Association (ABA).

On October 4, 1949, members of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) voted to exclude Black players from competitions.

The ACBL was founded in 1937 and became the largest organization devoted to the card game in the U.S. White bridge organizations in this era strictly enforced racial segregation, forcing Black bridge players to create their own bridge association called the American Bridge Association (ABA). Racial exclusion was reinforced by laws in several states that officially banned card games between Black and white players.

In 1949, several Black bridge players applied for membership in the ACBL, challenging the organization’s “white only” policy. In response, the ACBL board of directors held a vote among its 28,000 members. Nearly 60% voted to reject allowing Black bridge players to be admitted.

The ACBL’s president said after the vote that his organization “is not a political organization but is primarily social in character. Social customs are based on public opinion and we do not seek either to perpetuate or to destroy them.”

It would be over a decade until the ACBL began allowing Black players to compete, at first only in select events. In 1962, a Black bridge player named Joseph L. Henry, a top player in the ABA who had coordinated the effort to integrate the ACBL, led a team to the ACBL national title. The ACBL did not formally open its membership to Black players in all of its events until 1967.

Long after laws banning interracial games and sporting events were declared unconstitutional, many social clubs and associations, especially those most popular among upper-income white people, maintained segregated membership.

It is sobering to think that if I had been in the US prior to 1967, my bridge playing family would have been excluded from the ACBL. It reminds us that officially sanctioned racism remained in the US until very recently.

But unofficial racism persisted much longer and still exists. There had been a discussion recently over a request that the ACBL formally apologize for its history of racism and in the comments to that post, the following appeared.


In 2016 I attended the DC NABC. I was having a drink with friends in a hotel near the site. In came a very prominent sponsor and her partner. I’d chatted with the sponsor before, and she’d been a guest at a party my wife and I hosted during a local Regional some years before. She sat down beside me and we renewed acquaintance.

Suddenly she pulled out her phone, thumbed it and pulled up an image, which she showed to me with a smile.

It was an image of an ape’s face superimposed on an image of Ms. Obama…a racist meme then circulating

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t call her out on it. I turned away and didn’t speak to her again, but I should have done more….in my defence, I was taken completely by surprise.

I very much doubt that she was or is the only racist playing bridge. After all, she was clearly very comfortable with the idea that she could show this image to someone she barely knew.

The writer’s stunned reaction of silence is not surprising. I too have had that reaction when in a social gathering, someone made a racist or anti-Semitic comment. You are so taken by surprise that someone you know could be a bigot that you do not know what to do and the natural instinct is to not start a fight so you simply ignore it, hoping that the topic changes.

But I felt terrible afterwards for being such a coward and not speaking up. The speaker often takes silence for at least tacit agreement and anyone who overheard the comment may feel that it is commonly held. So now I prepare in advance what to say if someone should ever say something bigoted in my presence, so that I am not blindsided into silence. I say, as calmly as possible, something along the lines of “I do not agree with what you are saying because I believe it to express racist sentiments. If you like we can discuss this further.” I modify it accordingly if the comment is anti-semitic or transphoic or any of the other bigoted beliefs that float around in society.

Only on two occasions after I made that decision to speak up has it happened and the speakers did not take me up on my offer to debate the issue. Did it change their views? Likely not, since such views are usually acquired early in life and are deeply ingrained. But at least they realize that they should not take it for granted that others share them.