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Super Bowl champion Rod Woodson says the KKK tried to burn his family’s home down when he was 11 years old
Rod Woodson says the Ku Klux Klan tried to burn down his family’s home when he was 11, after his parents were targeted for being a mixed-race couple. The former NFL player’s account describes a racist threat that forced his family to consider their safety, though they stayed in the house through his childhood.
Woodson said he woke at about 2am to flames outside his bedroom window and alerted his father; the family escaped, and investigators later found the house had been doused with petrol. A week later, the family received a letter threatening another attack unless they left the area. Woodson also recalled receiving calls and letters from the Black Panthers, and said his father encouraged him to embrace both sides of his identity.
In short
- Woodson says the KKK tried to set fire to his family home.
- He was 11 when he woke to flames outside his window.
- His father urged him to embrace his mixed-race identity.
Explained simply
Rod Woodson is a former American football player who won the Super Bowl, the National Football League’s championship game. He grew up in a mixed-race family at a time when racist groups in the United States used threats and violence to intimidate Black people and those who challenged racial segregation.
The Ku Klux Klan, often called the KKK, is a white supremacist organisation with a history of attacks against Black communities. The Black Panthers were a separate Black political organisation formed in the 1960s. These groups and the threats Woodson describes provide context for the pressure his family faced because of their identity.