Crystal Palace and USMNT defender Chris Richards used his upbringing as a biracial boy in Birmingham, Ala., to propel him to the Qatar World Cup stage.
While the rest of the country had largely progressed past the legal battles of the civil right movement, parts of Alabama remained deeply segregated. In fact, the Alabama legislature didn’t vote to remove a ban on interracial marriage until 2000, seven months after Richards was born and 33 years after the Supreme Court’s 1967 landmark ruling on Loving v. Virginia.
“Growing up in Birmingham … you kind of have to take it on the chin because it’s a problem they have with you and not a problem that I have with them,” he said. “So you’ve just got to keep on pushing at the end of the day.” Richards spent his early playing days with a local club team in nearby Hoover before moving to Texas at 16 to play with the Houston Texans FC and, eventually,. Almost as soon as he signed with Dallas, the German giant Bayern Munich came knocking to lure the teenager away.
In addition to the success he experienced on the pitch, Richards said Germany felt much more accepting as a country.
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