The Bears will debut this season's throwback uniforms on Sunday against the Vikings, and the team "released a video" featuring several players and Chair George McCaskey yesterday to "address the controversy of celebrating an era when the NFL was segregated," according to Jason Lieser of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. The jerseys are inspired by the team's 1936 uniforms, but the Bears "did not have a black player" until '52. Bears DT Akiem Hicks said, "Wearing this jersey is a sign, a symbol for the people who came before us that weren't allowed to wear this jersey." The two-minute video about the jerseys featured Hicks, McCaskey, LB Danny Trevathan, TE Trey Burton and QBs Mitchell Trubisky and Chase Daniel. That group is the team's "social justice committee, which was formed last season." Hicks said that the "central point of the video" was that the current Bears team will have the "first black players to wear the uniform" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 9/25). The committee said that they had "many meetings about the topic and see the experience as an opportunity for African-American players to do what those 83 years ago could not" (PROFOOTBALLTALK.com, 9/25).
