Now available! Watch the panel discussion on the history of the Turkey Day Classic football rivalry between Phillis Wheatley High School and Jack Yates High School during the era of segregation, from 1942 to 1966!
Recorded on September 24, 2025, panelists included, Debra Blacklock-Sloan, Reverand Donald Dickson, Dr. Les Fullerton, and Dr. Thurman Robins.
Dr. Robins, a 1958 graduate of Yates and author of Requiem for a Classic: Thanksgiving Turkey Day Classic, described the attending the Turkey Day parade, how the Classic was the highlight of the school year, and the over-the-top Yates halftime performance in 1958. “The Yates versus Wheatley Thanksgiving Day Classic was an event which grew to glorious heights during the period of segregation,” Robins said. “The Classic was a social as well as an athletic contest, which engulfed the entire Houston Black community. It was a celebration. A significant, prideful happening, created and nourished not only by the schools and alumni, but by the majority of the Houston Black community and citizens... Newspaper accounts described it as the largest attended school board game in America.”
Dr. Elwyn C. Lee, UH’s Vice President for Neighborhood and Strategic Initiatives, attended the panel and spoke on why the Turkey Day Classic was important to the Third and Fifth Wards of Houston, and why it was important for UH to have the historic marker for the game near TDECU Stadium as the site where the Classic was once played.
Read More About the 2023 Unveiling of the Turkey Day Classic Historical Marker on the UH Campus
Read more about the history of the Turkey Day Classic at Houston History magazine