The untold story of a basketball pioneer who broke the color barrier in Texas basketball.
Though another athlete who played in the NFL is often credited for being the first Black Texas basketball player, Bubba Ephriam broke the color barrier in his sport in March 1957. He led the Pecos High School Eagles to their first outright district title and the UIL state basketball tournament.
Bubba grew up in a migrant farm family during pivotal years of segregation and integration. The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision was announced on May 17, 1954, two days after his sixteenth birthday. His first game with the Pecos Eagles was on December 1, 1955, the same day Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, launching a historic 381-day bus boycott. Follow this inspirational story as Bubba plays the game he loves through a turbulent period before pursuing a distinguished career in the US Armed Forces.
Garner Roberts worked for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, MO, Abilene Christian University, and Zachry Associates in Abilene during his career as a writer and editor. For 35 years, he worked in marketing and athletics media relations at ACU. He also served in media relations for the NCAA, NAIA, USA Track and Field, and US Olympic Committee at the Olympic Games, Pan American Games, IAAF World Championships, Goodwill Games, World University Games, and USA dual meets with USSR, German Democratic Republic, Cuba, England, and Federal Republic of Germany. He served as a director of Texas Writers Month, cofounder of the Big Country Soccer Association, and founding president of TASO Soccer Abilene Chapter. He was a communications consultant for Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas, the Texas Civil Justice League, and the Greater Austin Crime Commission. Roberts resides in Abilene, Texas.
“Roberts has captured the essence and soul of the dying days of segregation and the grudging transition to integration in the 1950s as it played out in Pecos, Texas, around the Lone Star state, and throughout the country. Caught in the middle is modest, Black, teenaged basketball phenom Iria “Bubba” Ephriam, unaware of the often-uncredited historic role he would play. Ephriam’s previously untold story is meticulously researched, and while Bubba Ephriam has a sports theme, it’s really a highly inspirational tale of history, family, faith, and community.”
—Michael Hurd, historian and author, Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas
ISBN 9781684261239
Pages 256
Dimensions (inches) 6 x 9
Weight (pounds) .5
