Las Vegas Raiders Continue Long Legacy Of Diversity With All-Black Leadership Group

The Las Vegas Raiders have continued their legacy of diversity in their ranks becoming the first team with an all-Black leadership group

The Las Vegas Raiders have become the standard of diversity in the NFL, becoming the first team to sport an all-Black leadership group, USA Today reports.

The Raiders interim head coach Antonio Pierce, team president Sandra Douglass Morgan, and general manager Champ Kelly have made history as the league’s first group of African Americans to run an NFL franchise.

Pierce took over as head coach two weeks ago after former coach Josh McDaniels was fired on Nov. 1. The former linebacker brought new energy to the team and its players, leading the Silver and Black to two straight wins since he took the reins. The Raiders defeated the New York Giants, whom Pierce played for from 2005 to 2009, and the New York Jets.

Kelly was promoted to general manager the same day Pierce was promoted to interim head coach. He previously served as the assistant GM to Dave Ziegler, who was fired along with McDaniels. Douglass Morgan, the longest-tenured member of the group, was hired as team president on July 7, 2022. Her hiring made her the first Black woman to be named team president in NFL history. She is also the third Black person and the third woman to hold the title of team president.

The Raiders are 5-5, good enough for second place in the AFC West. However, it’s been 20 years since their last Super Bowl appearance and 21 years since winning the AFC West division. The new leadership of Pierce, Morgan, and Kelly will try to end those streaks.

The Raiders have committed to diversity in its front office for more than four decades. Former head coach Tom Flores, who led the Raiders to two Super Bowl titles in 1980 and 1983, is the first Mexican-American head coach in the NFL and the first to win a Super Bowl.

Another former Raiders coach, Art Shell, became the first African American coach to lead the team to a Conference Championship game in 1990 when he led the Raiders to a 12-4 record and won the NFL Coach Of The Year Award. Raiders’ late owner, Al Davis, fired Shell in 1994, which he later admitted was a mistake. Davis hired Shell to coach the Raiders again in 2006.

The Raiders are also a beacon of diversity when it comes to women. Davis made Amy Trask the NFL’s first female CEO in 1997. Trask, who started in the Raiders’ legal department in 1987, held the CEO role with the team until 2013.