What could more perfectly distill life in mid-20th-century Buffalo than bowling? As Oscar Madison exclaimed as he gazed out a window during a visit to the Queen City in a 1974 episode of “The Odd Couple”, “Who would believe that eight bowling alleys on the same block could do much business?”
Given that background, it’s fitting that Buffalo played a central role in a far more serious side of the game: the desegregation of bowling in America.
Flash back to the 1940s, when the popularity of bowling exploded in the U.S. It was a democratic game, enjoyed by everyone, regardless of age, gender, ethinicity, or athletic ability. But when it came to tournament bowling, it was a different story: the American Bowling Congress (ABC), bowling's governing body, had in its bylaws a "white males only" clause which it had strictly enforced since its incorporation in 1893.
However, by the end of World War II, conditions were ripe to end the rampant racial inequality that marred American life. Just as in baseball, the push was on to achieve full racial integration in bowling. Buffalo already had a number of groups pushing for integration, so when the top officials at the forefront of the anti-discrimination movement—from the NAACP, B’nai B’rith, UAW-CIO, and the National Committee for Fair Play in Bowling (NCFPB), among others---met in 1947, they chose Buffalo as the locus of the push.
Soon, bowlers at the city’s alleys were handed flyers that read:
Are you interested in fair play in bowling? Do you know that
the American Bowling Congress excludes American citizens who
happen to be of Chinese, Philippine, Negro, and Hawaiian
ancestry? Why is this important? It is important because the
American Bowling Congress controls tournaments, championship
awards, and substantial prizes.
It is comparable to excluding Joe Louis from boxing, Jackie
Robinson from baseball, Jesse Owens from track. A group of
citizens of Buffalo, who are interested in the sport and
American ideals, are meeting to register their conviction that
the sport of bowling should be protected from the black eye,
which discrimination of this kind is bound to give it.
Sure enough, in January 1948, Buffalo organizers announced that they would stage a major, fully integrated tourney—not sanctioned by the ABC, of course---called the All-American Bowling Tournament on Feb. 28 and 29. Hosted by the Amherst Lanes, touted as “one of America's most beautiful and modern bowling establishments” (later known as Voelker’s, on the corner of Elmwood and Amherst, and torn down in March 2025), the tournament drew 795 entries, a mix of both white and black men’s and women’s teams.
Meanwhile, the ABC’S reaction to the pressure campaign was to dig in in defense of its color line, and to do so with hostility. Max Dozoretz, a Jewish activist who became chairman of the Buffalo chapter of the NCFPB, was banned from every ABC-sanctioned alley in the Buffalo area after his photo appeared presenting a check to the all-black team that won the women’s event at the All-American Tournament.
The pressure continued to mount against the ABC in the form of lawsuits from the city of Chicago and New York State. Finally, in May 1950, the delegates at the bowling congress’s annual convention voted to remove the whites-only clause from its constitution. The color bar was lifted at last.
As James H. Rigali and John C. Walter concluded in their comprehensive paper, “The Integration of the American Bowling Congress: The Buffalo Experience”:
In Buffalo the various members of all the organizations who had participated with the National Committee for Fair Play in Bowling in its sterling efforts to integrate the ABC, could congratulate themselves. They had played a pivotal role in the campaign to integrate the ABC, had worked hard in an ecumenical manner, and had set an important example for other cities in the fight to integrate a major American sport.
Cast (in order of appearance):
Teen boy: Anthony Alcocer
Teen girl: Kate LoConti Alcocer
Narrator: Susan Banks
Sound recording: Brandon Nightingale
Sound editing: Micheal Peters
Piano theme: Excerpt from “Buffalo City Guards Parade March,” by Francis Johnson (1839)
Performed by Aaron Dai
Produced by the Niagara Frontier Heritage Project
Associate producer: Karl-Eric Reif
Webpage written by Jeff Z. Klein (Niagara Frontier Heritage Project)
Special thanks to:
Kathryn Larsen, vice president, content distribution, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
S.J. Velasquez, director of audio strategy, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
Jerry Urban, senior radio broadcast engineer