African American Icons of Sport

African American Icons of Sport
Author: Matthew Whitaker
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2008-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This volume offers an examination of African Americans in sports, from a variety of perspectives. It explores the history and lives of complex, multi-layered personages and groups. Also examined is the extent to which modern mass media and popular culture have contributed greatly to the rise, and sometimes fall, of these powerful symbols of athletic, individual, and group excellence.

African American Icons of Sport

African American Icons of Sport
Author: Matthew C. Whitaker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: African American athletes
ISBN: 9789798400605

This volume offers an examination of African Americans in sports, from a variety of perspectives. It explores the history and lives of complex, multi-layered personages and groups. Also examined is the extent to which modern mass media and popular culture have contributed greatly to the rise, and sometimes fall, of these powerful symbols of athletic, individual, and group excellence.

More Than a Game

More Than a Game
Author: David K. Wiggins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1538114984

More than a Game discusses how African American men and women sought to participate in sport and what that participation meant to them, the African American community, and the United States more generally. Recognizing the complicated history of race in America and how sport can both divide and bring people together, the book chronicles the ways in which African Americans overcame racial discrimination to achieve success in an institution often described as America's only true meritocracy. African Americans have often glorified sport, viewing it as one of the few ways they can achieve a better life. In reality, while some African Americans found fame and fortune in sport, most struggled just to participate – let alone succeed at the highest levels of sport. Thus, the book has two basic themes. It discusses the varied experiences of African Americans in sport and how their participation has both reflected and changed views of race.

Separate Games

Separate Games
Author: David K. Wiggins
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1682260178

The hardening of racial lines during the first half of the twentieth century eliminated almost all African Americans from white organized sports, forcing black athletes to form their own teams, organizations, and events. This separate sporting culture, explored in the twelve essays included here, comprised much more than athletic competition; these "separate games" provided examples of black enterprise and black self-help and showed the importance of agency and the quest for racial uplift in a country fraught with racialist thinking and discrimination.

Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows
Author: David K. Wiggins
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2008-02-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1557288763

The original essays in this comprehensive collection examine the lives and sports of famous and not-so-famous African American male and female athletes from the nineteenth century to today. Here are twenty insightful biographies that furnish perspectives on the changing status of these athletes and how these changes mirrored the transformation of sports, American society, and civil rights legislation. Some of the athletes discussed include Marshall Taylor (bicycling), William Henry Lewis (football), Jack Johnson, Satchel Paige, Jesse Owens, Joe Lewis, Alice Coachman (track and field), Althea Gibson (tennis), Wilma Rudolph, Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Venus and Serena Williams.

More Than Just a Game

More Than Just a Game
Author: Madison Moore
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2021
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780807552711

A look at how Black players came to shine on the basketball court.

Taboo

Taboo
Author: Jon Entine
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2008-08-05
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0786724501

In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this? Drawing on the latest scientific research, journalist Jon Entine makes an irrefutable case for black athletic superiority. We learn how scientists have used numerous, bogus "scientific" methods to prove that blacks were either more or less superior physically, and how racist scientists have often equated physical prowess with intellectual deficiency. Entine recalls the long, hard road to integration, both on the field and in society. And he shows why it isn't just being black that matters—it makes a huge difference as to where in Africa your ancestors are from.Equal parts sports, science and examination of why this topic is so sensitive, Taboois a book that will spark national debate.

Icons of Black America [3 volumes]

Icons of Black America [3 volumes]
Author: Matthew Whitaker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 1201
Release: 2011-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313376433

This stunning collection of essays illuminates the lives and legacies of the most famous and powerful individuals, groups, and institutions in African American history. The three-volume Icons of Black America: Breaking Barriers and Crossing Boundaries is an exhaustive treatment of 100 African American people, groups, and organizations, viewed from a variety of perspectives. The alphabetically arranged entries illuminate the history of highly successful and influential individuals who have transcended mere celebrity to become representatives of their time. It offers analysis and perspective on some of the most influential black people, organizations, and institutions in American history, from the late 19th century to the present. Each chapter is a detailed exploration of the life and legacy of an individual icon. Through these portraits, readers will discover how these icons have shaped, and been shaped by, the dynamism of American culture, as well as the extent to which modern mass media and popular culture have contributed to the rise, and sometimes fall, of these powerful symbols of individual and group excellence.

Integrating the Gridiron

Integrating the Gridiron
Author: Lane Demas
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813547415

Even the most casual sports fans celebrate the achievements of professional athletes, among them Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Yet before and after these heroes staked a claim for African Americans in professional sports, dozens of college athletes asserted their own civil rights on the amateur playing field, and continue to do so today. Integrating the Gridiron, the first book devoted to exploring the racial politics of college athletics, examines the history of African Americans on predominantly white college football teams from the nineteenth century through today. Lane Demas compares the acceptance and treatment of black student athletes by presenting compelling stories of those who integrated teams nationwide, and illuminates race relations in a number of regions, including the South, Midwest, West Coast, and Northeast. Focused case studies examine the University of California, Los Angeles in the late 1930s; integrated football in the Midwest and the 1951 Johnny Bright incident; the southern response to black players and the 1955 integration of the Sugar Bowl; and black protest in college football and the 1969 University of Wyoming "Black 14." Each of these issues drew national media attention and transcended the world of sports, revealing how fans--and non-fans--used college football to shape their understanding of the larger civil rights movement.

A Legacy of African American Resistance and Activism Through Sport

A Legacy of African American Resistance and Activism Through Sport
Author: Joseph N. Cooper
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781433184994

In recent years, there has been increased attention garnered toward activism in sport within the United States. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick's activist act of taking a knee during the national anthem before National Football League games sparked a nationwide debate on the intersection of sports, race, and politics. Kaepernick's actions were a part of a long lineage of activism in and through sport. Prior accounts of African American activism in and through sport have been limited in the following eight areas: (1) primarily focused on one type of activism (e.g., symbolic protests/boycotts); (2) a lack of differentiation between activism and borderline activist actions (e.g., agency, pioneering, and advocacy); (3) a lack of emphasis on hybrid resistance; (4) a focus on athletes and teams versus sportspersons (i.e., media, scholars, business leaders, and community members) and institutions (i.e., historically Black colleges and universities, athletic programs, and conferences) more broadly; (5) largely focused on one era of prominent athlete activism in the 1960s; (6) principally excluded and marginalized the importance of women's role in resistance efforts (e.g., activism for social change); (7) primarily focused on activism at the intercollegiate and professional levels with less attention toward youth and interscholastic levels; and (8) a lack of theoretically driven analyses of the resistance efforts exhibited by African American sportspersons, teams, groups, organizations, and institutions. Instead of exclusively using the term activism, the author uses the broader encompassing term of resistance as the focal framework for this text. Resistance is defined as intentional and/or unintentional actions by individuals, groups, organizations, and/or institutions that challenge oppressive systems and ideological hegemony. Using adaptive race- and ethnicity-centric typologies and interdisciplinary theories, this book offers a critical analysis of African Americans' intra- and inter-generational resistance actions where, when, why, and how sport has been utilized to express their humanity, preserve their cultural heritages, empower themselves and their communities, project political views, and pursue freedom, equality, and justice.