The original purpose of our Spy interview with Sunburst Pharm founder and CEO Darryl Hill was to spotlight a lifetime career as a serial entrepreneur with Sunburst being one of the most successful cannabis dispensaries in Maryland. I still very much want to have that conversation with Darryl, but when we began talking a week ago, it became clear another story needed to come first.
Sixty-three years ago today, on September 21, 1963, Hill took the field for the University of Maryland against N.C. State and became the first Black football player in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference. It was an extraordinary moment in college sports, although Darryl makes clear that at the time he had no particular desire to be a civil rights pioneer. As he remembers telling Maryland assistant coach Lee Corso, “I don’t want to be Jackie Robinson. I want to go to college.”
What followed that fall tells you a good deal about Darryl Hill and his character. Maryland’s schedule took him into a South where college football remained deeply segregated. His memories of those games, particularly what happened at Clemson, are both disturbing and remarkable. They include threats, open racism, his mother being denied admission to a stadium, and acts of courage from people on both sides of the color line.
So, on the anniversary of the day Darryl Hill first took the field for Maryland, the Spy thought this was the right time to let him tell that story himself. We will get back to the entrepreneur who eventually founded Sunburst Pharm in Cambridge. But first, there is this story.
This video is approximately nine minutes in length. For more information about Sunburst Pharm please go here.
