 Fenwick H. Watkins - center holding ball - in his high school yearbook from 1905. Identity can be complicated. We know that there are people in our local history who, for a variety of reasons, tried to avoid being identified as Black. Some found it advantageous personally, professionally, and for safety, to identify as white. Fenwick Watkins may have been one of them. Fenwick Henri Watkins was born in 1885 in Burlington, Vermont, to an African American family. He studied Civil Engineering at the University of Vermont where he was a standout athlete in football, baseball and basketball. Fenwick Watkins was the first Black athlete of a predominantly white school to captain a college football team. After graduation, he moved to Fargo. With the exception of the 1930 Census, all known records about Fenwick Watkins list him as white while living in Fargo. He coached and led the sports program at Fargo College from 1909 to 1915. He entered the real estate business and coached part-time until 1920 when Fargo College closed. After one year as Assistant Coach at North Dakota Agricultural College (NDSU today), Watkins took over the athletic department at Concordia College where he remained until 1926. For a time, he worked for the Home Owners Loan Corporation, a program notorious across the country for refusing home loans to African Americans in certain neighborhoods - a practice known as Redlining. He continued in the real estate business in Fargo until his death in 1943. Watkins' life highlights the complicated history of African American identity and sports history.  Fenwick Watkins', back row on left side, Fargo College football team, 1910.
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Dennis Joiner’s The Turn is a powerful, eye-opening look at how American life has changed and sometimes unraveled over the past 75 years. He doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff: wars, protests, culture wars, pandemics, and the deep sense of discontent many people feel. What makes this book stand out is how it connects the dots between personal struggles and big historical moments. Honest, bold, and timely. 9/12/2025 07:31:43 pm
Thank you so much for this illuminating piece. Fenwick Watkins’s story is a powerful reminder of how sports don’t just shape athletics, they shape identity—especially when race, opportunity, and history intersect in complicated ways. I was particularly struck by how he excelled in multiple sports and became captain of the football team at the University of Vermont despite the racial dynamics of his time. His journey doesn’t just tell us about athletic accomplishment; it tells us about navigating social identity, about what it meant for an African American man in that era to live, lead, and sometimes mask to protect self or access opportunity. Leave a Reply. |
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