A Dog and a King: Looking at The Junkyard Dog's experiences in the wake of desegregation and assassination
A heretofore seemingly forgotten story in the early life of Sylvester Ritter (The Junkyard Dog) may offer some insight into the personality of the man who later transcended race to become the first Black wrestler indisputably pushed as the top babyface of a major pro wrestling territory in the South. The story has nothing to do with wrestling, though if you view professional wrestling in the territorial era as a sort of morality play based on real-life struggles & issues and you look at the role Junkyard Dog played as an extension of that, then it has everything to do with it.
