Through Jameelah Mullen
November 7, 2025
A rivalry that combines history and camaraderie
It’s about to happen on Saturday, November 8, when two HBCUs, Johnson C. Smith University and Livingstone College, compete in the Commemorative Classic. This game honors the first HBCU game in history, played 133 years ago.
It started just two days after Christmas 1892, when the Biddle Institute, now Johnson C. Smith University, traveled by segregated rail to Salisbury, North Carolina, to stand on a snow-covered field across from Livingstone College. The teams used a football purchased with student donations, and classmates also sewed their uniforms. Officials kept score using a borrowed playbook, with Biddle winning 5-0 and fueling black football culture, which is now part of a broader black cultural phenomenon that includes weeklong celebrations, tailgating and inter-band fights.
The game was formally renamed the Commemorative Classic in 2009 and now serves as a tribute to the first HBCU football game ever played, with alumni and football fans coming together to celebrate the two teams that it all started.
“This game is not just where HBCU football began. It is where our story as a conference, culture and community took root,” CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams Parker said in a Livingstone College news release. “Generations of students, athletes, bands, alumni and families have helped build this legacy, and every time Johnson C. Smith and Livingstone take the field, they carry decades of history with them. The first game laid the foundation. This game protects it. That’s why this rivalry lives on as the Commemorative Classic; an annual reminder of where Black College Football began and who continues to continue it today.”
Throughout its 133-year history, Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) has earned bragging rights; JCSU remained undefeated for almost 40 years. Livingstone made a comeback in the 1990s and won several. Last year, the Livingstone Blue Bears defeated the JCSU Golden Bills by a final score of 15-10.
The game begins at 1:00 PM at George W Gray Field, located in the Irwin Belk Complex at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. Enthusiasts can do that too catch the game via livestream on YouTube.
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