STANDING IN THE CORNER OF JUSTICE

By Peter Vuono

     I've been a wrestling fan since 1965. Back then there was no cablevision or internet and so the only way to find out about wrestlers from other regions of the country were through magazines and photos. I purchased a picture book of wrestlers from Texas in 1966 and it displayed a photo of a man with  a white Mohawk style hairdo and his eyebrows covered with stitches! It was the kind of guy that I sure would never want to meet in a dark alley! Little did I know that decades later I would find that this man, Sputnik Monroe ,was one of the greatest white civil rights activists of all time!.
     Roscoe Monroe Merrick was born on Dec. 18th 1928 in Dodge City Kansas. His dad perished in a plane crash shortly before he was born and young Roscoe was passed back and forth between grandparents. When he turned 17, his mom remarried and his step dad adopted him His name was now Roscoe Monroe Brumbaugh. The new family moved to Wichita and Roscoe hung out at the local YMCA where he saw famed pro wrestler, Everett Marshall. Roscoe was impressed with the fancy suits and cars that wrestlers had and it always stayed on his mind. However, the war and Uncle Sam were calling.
     He entered the United States Navy during WWII and wrestled amateur while in the Navy at a slim 180 lbs. When his hitch was over, he toured the mid-west at carnivals, rodeos and fairs in "shoot" matches challenging anyone to pin him. A "shoot" match is one that is not orchestrated or predetermined. Some nights it was tough for Roscoe to get matches. As he put it,"Some nights I'd have chicken and other nights, just feathers." It was at this time that Roscoe changed his name to Rocky Monroe and trained under the auspices of noted wrestler/trainer Jack Nazworthy.
     Monroe started his pro career as a "face"(good guy), and toured the south and the mid-west. One evening, Monroe was beaned over the head with a wooden chair. Pieces of the chair remained imbedded in his head causing an infection. When his hair finally came back, it turned pure white in the middle in stark contrast to the black on the sides. He had an odd Mohawk long before it came into vogue in the 80's. After this incident, he decided to turn "heel"(bad guy). One evening in 1957, Rocky Monroe wrestled in Mobile using his usual rough style. An elderly woman at ringside was incensed by his tactics and called him every name in the book. The McCarthy era and phobias against communists were very much prevalent across the US. Therefore, the elderly woman, having run out of names shouted."You're a communist Sputnik". Monroe heard it as did the ring announcer and rather liked the new name. Monroe adopted it and from that moment on, he was called Sputnik Monroe.
     From Mobile, Monroe settled in Memphis which in the late 50's was rife with prejudice and segregation. However, Monroe was a different kind of person and he preferred to spend all his free time on Beale Street which was a predominantly Black area. Local authorities were dead set on enforcing segregation and Monroe was arrested a miasma of times for vagrancy.At about the same time, he was becoming the number one wrestling star of Tennessee and in a match with Billy Wicks(refereed by Rocky Marciano), Monroe sold out Ellis Auditorium in Memphis with 13,000 people, a record that stood in the South until the year 2001!
    Monroe had often said that he was"Rough, tough and hard to bluff". He put this tenacity to good use in a successful coup to thwart Memphis segregation.
     Ellis Auditorium would not allow blacks to sit anywhere they wanted. Segregation was enforced and the black fans were forced to sit in the balcony or "Crows Nest" as it was called. They were not allowed to sit amongst white patrons down closer to the ring. Monroe concocted a three tiered plan to end this. He gave out hundreds of reduced rate passes to ensure that there would be more black patrons than the balcony would be able to accommodate. He then bribed the gate keeper into lying about the number of black tickets sold so as to fool the promoters. If there were 500-1,000 black patrons who would have tickets, the gate keeper would report that there were far fewer. Finally, Monroe exercised his star power as insurance. He was the number one draw in Memphis and boldly told promoters that he would not wrestle if the promoters refused to allow black patrons to sit where they wanted.
    For fear of seeing their profits plummet, the promoters relented and Ellis auditorium was integrated for the first time ever and would stay that way. In a similar incident, a Memphis auto dealership enforced segregation for viewing an auto show. Blacks would have to enter when told to and view the cars from a "colored only" section. Monroe proceeded to call the dealership and threatened to buy a dealership and place it on Beale St. in the black area. Needless to say, segregation was terminated at this event.
    Years later at a match in Louisville, Monroe was approached by a young woman in her 30's. She told him that they never met but because of his tenacity and desire for justice, she and her family were for the first time in their lives treated like equals. It was said that it was the first time in wrestling history that anyone had ever seen Sputnik Monroe break down and cry.
    Sputnik wasn't done there, however. In 1972 he put together the first ever interracial tag-team with wrestler Norvell Austin who had a blond streak in his hair to match the Mohawk of Sputnik's. At the end of one match, Monroe dumped a bucket of black paint on a vanquished opponent and screamed"Black is beautiful". Austin then hugged Monroe and yelled"White is beautiful". This in turn led to other interracial tag teams in several leagues around the country.
     It took a great deal of courage to impose integration by oneself in an area which had for so long practiced the antithesis. However, Sputnik always said that he was" A piece of twisted steel and sex appeal. A heavenly body that women craved and men feared". Perhaps he was right.
    Monroe retired from the ring to New Smyrna Beach Florida. In his latter years he had part of his lung removed and several bouts with lung cancer. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on Nov. 3, 2006 at the age of 77.
    There is an urban legend in Memphis that in the 1960's every African American household had three pictures displayed. One was of Jesus, the second of Martin Luther King and the third of Sputnik Monroe. I don't know if the legend is true or not but I am convinced of one thing- it should be.

This author acknowledges the Monroe Brothers online fan club website, the Wikipedia Library and an online article by Mike Morgan as the major sources for the composition of this article.