Half-Apache Jake Redman was more than a match for the wild Arizona Territory. Sarah Conway was an Eastern lady who belonged anywhere else but on the rugged land Jake loved. Annoyed to find himself playing guardian angel to an innocent, Jake was even more disgusted to find that he liked it.

At a time when "Friday night lights" shone only on white high school football games, African American teams across Texas burned up the gridiron on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The segregated high schools in the Prairie View Interscholastic League (the African American counterpart of the University Interscholastic League, which excluded black schools from membership until 1967) created an exciting brand of football that produced hundreds of outstanding...