CHARLOTTE, NC (November 6, 2025) - Before there were marching bands shaking bleachers, before CIAA championships filled cities, before college football became a Saturday ritual in Black America, there was a snowy field, a borrowed rulebook and a belief that two Black colleges could play a game the world didn’t think belonged to them.
It was December 27, 1892, when Biddle Institute, now Johnson C. Smith University, boarded segregated rail cars in Charlotte and traveled to Salisbury to face Livingstone College on a field that was really just a pasture, lined not with chalk but with footprints in the snow. Their uniforms were sewn by female students in Livingstone dorm rooms. Their cleats were street shoes with nails hammered into the soles. One football, purchased with student donations. Two forty-five-minute halves. No scoreboard. No stadium. No bands. No cameras.
Biddle won 5–0. And in that moment, Black College football began.
What began in the snow is now honored as the Commemorative Classic, not just a game but the reenactment of where HBCU football was born.
Long before the NCAA existed, before the forward pass was legal, before the NFL was founded, before the Rose Bowl ever kicked off, two HBCUs created a rivalry that would outlive eras, laws, presidents and generations. That snowy afternoon did not just launch a matchup; it built a tradition, a declaration, and a blueprint. It said we will compete; we will organize, we will build a sport even if no one hands us a field.
What started as a borrowed ball game in the cold has become the longest running rivalry in HBCU football and one of the oldest in all of college sports. Across 133 years, Johnson C. Smith leads the all-time series 48–32–3, but every decade has reshaped the balance, from the years JCSU went undefeated for nearly four straight decades, to the Livingstone resurgence of the 1990s, to last year when the Blue Bears beat the Golden Bulls 15–10 and ended JCSU’s shot at a CIAA title.
Some rivalries stay frozen in time. This one evolves with every whistle.
It has been played through segregation, war, reconstruction, integration, televised eras, NIL eras and streaming eras. It has been played in front of crowds standing shoulder to shoulder, then crowds sitting under grandstands, and now crowds holding smartphones and watching from across the country. It has survived rule changes, scoring changes, coaching eras, conference eras, and cultural eras. Through it all, the game remained the same: JCSU vs Livingstone. Charlotte vs Salisbury. Golden Bulls vs Blue Bears.
And it has never belonged only to the players. It belongs to the alumni who never miss a Classic. To the bands who treat halftime like a championship. To the families who have attended for generations. To the grandfathers who remember the McCrorey years and the students who only know the hashtag era. To the Livingstone crowd that swears the 1892 fumble was in bounds, and the JCSU crowd that swears the snow proves otherwise.
This rivalry is not passed down in playbooks. It is passed down on tailgate tables, drumlines, yearbooks and stories told on long rides up and down I-85.
Formally renamed the Commemorative Classic in 2009, the game now serves as a living tribute to the first HBCU football contest ever played, a reminder that history is not something to look back on, but something to carry forward.
And now, 133 years after the first snap, the story continues. Livingstone won the most recent meeting. JCSU owns the record. One holds the rivalry. One holds the momentum. This year, the Commemorative Classic carries more than pride, as postseason hopes flow through Charlotte.
The first game was played in the snow. This one will be played on George W Gray Field inside Irwin Belk Complex at 1 PM, in front of a crowd that already knows every yard is personal.
“This game is not just where HBCU football began. It is where our story as a conference, a culture and a community took root,” said CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams Parker. “Generations of students, athletes, bands, alumni and families 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 built the foundation. This game protects it. That is why this rivalry lives on as the Commemorative Classic; a yearly reminder of where Black college football began and who continues to carry it forward.”
Last year, Livingstone played spoiler. This year, JCSU plays it at home. Another CIAA Championship berth on the line, and the same opponent from 1892 standing in the way.
2025 Commemorative Classic: Johnson C. Smith University vs Livingstone College
- Date: Saturday, November 9, 2025
- Kickoff: 1 PM
- Location: George W Gray Field at Irwin Belk Complex, Charlotte, NC
- Streaming: CIAA Sports Network
Media Contact
Anna M Butzlaff
Associate Commissioner, Strategic Communications
Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association
abutzlaff@theciaa.com
About the CIAA
Founded in 1912, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) is the first and longest running African American athletic conference in the United States and one of the most recognized conferences in Division II. The CIAA conducts 14 championships attended by more than 150,000 fans from around the country. The Basketball Tournament has been honored as a 2019 Champion of Economic Impact in Sports Tourism by Sports Destination Management, the leading publication with the largest circulation of sports event planners and tournament directors in the sports tourism market, for both 2018 and 2019.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the CIAA is governed by the presidents and chancellors of its twelve member institutions: Bowie State University, Bluefield State University, Claflin University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, Johnson C. Smith University, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Livingstone College, Shaw University, Virginia State University, Virginia Union University and Winston Salem State University. For more information on the CIAA, visit theciaa.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.