The Strange Career of the Black Athlete

The Strange Career of the Black Athlete
Author: Russell T. Wigginton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2006-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313086222
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Few realize that some sports were integrated, or even dominated by blacks, before becoming dominated by whites, for example, horse racing, golf, hockey, and tennis. This book provides a lens through which to view the historical context and specific circumstances of African Americans' presence in various sports. The author asks why sport has at times challenged the status quo with regard to race and civil rights, and at other times reinforced it. To that end, he analyzes various sports and asks why and when has each sport responded differently. Wigginton asks how did blacks break the color barrier? Were they able to maintain representation in the particular sport? And did the entrance of blacks in these sports change the public's perception of the sport? The answers to these questions shed light on why America remains preoccupied with sports, race, and the seemingly integral relationship between the two.

African Americans in Sports

African Americans in Sports
Author: Carla Mooney
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2012-01-20
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1420508636
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Author Carla Mooney explores African American involvement in sports in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present. Blacks' participation in horse racing, track and field, baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, and boxing are all covered. The book relates the accomplishments of trailblazers as well as the discrimination, insults, and physical violence they endured to open the doors of opportunity for black athletes around the country. The achievements of modern sports stars are also discussed and sidebars feature brief biographies of both pioneers and superstars.

African Americans in Sports

African Americans in Sports
Author: Tamra B. Orr
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2019-12-15
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1534568484
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From Jackie Robinson to Venus and Serena Williams, African Americans have used sports to fight for social change. Many of them had to fight against discrimination, and their strength in the face of adversity on the field and off has inspired many people. Their stories are presented to readers through engaging main text that includes annotated quotes from historians, journalists, and the athletes themselves. Compelling photographs, sidebars, and a timeline help readers trace the struggles and successes of African Americans in sports, from the distant past to today's current debates over kneeling during the national anthem.

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe
Author: Eric Allen Hall
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2014-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421413957
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The first scholarly biography of one of the most famous athletes of our time shows how Ashe worked for civil rights while playing a country-club sport in a white man’s world. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Arthur Ashe explains how this iconic African American tennis player overcame racial and class barriers to reach the top of the tennis world in the 1960s and 1970s. But more important, it follows Ashe’s evolution as an activist who had to contend with the shift from civil rights to Black Power. Off the court, and in the arena of international politics, Ashe positioned himself at the center of the black freedom movement, negotiating the poles of black nationalism and assimilation into white society. Fiercely independent and protective of his public image, he navigated the thin line between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and radicals, the sports establishment and the black cause. Eric Allen Hall’s work examines Ashe’s life as a struggle against adversity but also a negotiation between the comforts—perhaps requirements—of tennis-star status and the felt obligation to protest the discriminatory barriers the white world constructed to keep black people "in their place." Drawing on coverage of Ashe’s athletic career and social activism in domestic and international publications, archives including the Ashe Papers, and a variety of published memoirs and interviews, Hall has created an intimate, nuanced portrait of a great athlete who stood at the crossroads of sports and equal justice.

A Spectacular Leap

A Spectacular Leap
Author: Jennifer H. Lansbury
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1610755421
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When high jumper Alice Coachman won the high jump title at the 1941 national championships with "a spectacular leap," African American women had been participating in competitive sport for close to twenty-five years. Yet it would be another twenty years before they would experience something akin to the national fame and recognition that African American men had known since the 1930s, the days of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. From the 1920s, when black women athletes were confined to competing within the black community, through the heady days of the late twentieth century when they ruled the world of women's track and field, African American women found sport opened the door to a better life. However, they also discovered that success meant challenging perceptions that many Americans--both black and white--held of them. Through the stories of six athletes--Coachman, Ora Washington, Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudloph, Wyomia Tyus, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee--Jennifer H. Lansbury deftly follows the emergence of black women athletes from the African American community; their confrontations with contemporary attitudes of race, class, and gender; and their encounters with the civil rights movement. Uncovering the various strategies the athletes use to beat back stereotypes, Lansbury explores the fullness of African American women's relationship with sport in the twentieth century.

A Companion to American Sport History

A Companion to American Sport History
Author: Steven A. Riess
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 921
Release: 2014-03-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118609409
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A Companion to American Sport History presents a collection of original essays that represent the first comprehensive analysis of scholarship relating to the growing field of American sport history. Presents the first complete analysis of the scholarship relating to the academic history of American sport Features contributions from many of the finest scholars working in the field of American sport history Includes coverage of the chronology of sports from colonial times to the present day, including major sports such as baseball, football, basketball, boxing, golf, motor racing, tennis, and track and field Addresses the relationship of sports to urbanization, technology, gender, race, social class, and genres such as sports biography Awarded 2015 Best Anthology from the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH)

Race and Sports

Race and Sports
Author: Rachel Laws Myers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN:
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Race and Sports: A Reference Handbook provides a breadth and depth of discussion about minority athletes, coaches, sports journalists, and others in U.S. sport. This volume examines race and sports and connected issues, from the integration of professional sports to the present day. It also explores the history of minority involvement in sports at every level: the barriers broken, the stereotypes that have been shattered, and the difficulties that these pioneers have endured. One of the most valuable aspects of the book is that it surveys the history of race and sports in a manner that helps readers identify key issues. An extensive background on the topic of race and sports, including a review of the history and an introduction to its technical aspects, is followed by a discussion of controversies, problems, and possible solutions. Essays from various contributors showcase different aspects of race and sports, while a substantial amount of the volume is dedicated to reference material — such as biographical sketches, a chronology, an extensive annotated bibliography, and a glossary — helpful in further study of the topic.

African American Almanac

African American Almanac
Author: Lean'tin Bracks
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1578593824
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The most complete and affordable single-volume reference of African American culture available today, this almanac is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating and demystifying the moving, difficult, and often lost history of black life in America. Celebrating centuries of achievements, the African American Almanac: 400 Years of Triumph, Courage, and Excellence provides insights on the influence, inspiration, and impact of African Americans on U.S. society and culture. A legacy of pride, struggle, and triumph is presented through a fascinating mix of biographies—including 750 influential figures—little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and 445 rare photographs and illustrations. Covering politics, education, religion, business, science, medicine, the military, sports, literature, music, dance, theater, art, film, and television, chapters address the important events and social and cultural changes that affected African Americans over the centuries, followed by biographical profiles of hundreds of key figures, including Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Josephine Baker, Amiri Baraka, Daisy Bates, George Washington Carver, Ray Charles, Bessie Coleman, Gary Davis, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Michael Eric Dyson, Duke Ellington, Medgar Evers, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Eric H. Holder Jr., Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, LeBron James, Mae C. Jemison, Martin Luther King Jr., Queen Latifah, Jacob Lawrence, Kevin Liles, Thurgood Marshall, Walter Mosley, Elijah Muhammad, Barack Obama, Gordon Parks, Rosa Parks, Richard Pryor, Condoleezza Rice, Smokey Robinson, Wilma Rudolph, Betty Shabazz, Tavis Smiley, Clarence Thomas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Ross Tubman, C. Delores Tucker, Usher, Denmark Vesey, Alice Walker, Booker T. Washington, Kanye West, Reggie White, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, and Malcolm X. Explore a wealth of milestones, inspiration, challenges met, and lasting respect! The African American Almanac’s helpful bibliography and extensive index add to its usefulness.

Sport in the African World

Sport in the African World
Author: John Nauright
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2018-05-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351212737
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Sport has been a component of African cultural life for several hundred years. In today’s globalized world, Africans and Africa have become a vital part of the international sporting landscape. This is the first book to attempt to survey the historical, contemporary and geographical breadth of that landscape, drawing on multidisciplinary scholarship from around the world. To gain an understanding of sport in Africa and its contributions to the global sports world, one must first consider the ways in which sport itself is a terrain of conflict and represents another symbolic territory to conquer. Addressing key themes such as colonialism, globalization, migration, apartheid, politics and international relations, sports media and broadcasting, ethnobranding, sports tourism and the African diaspora in Europe and the United States, this collection of original scholarship offers a significant contribution to this burgeoning field of research. Sport in the African World is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in sport studies, sport history, African history or African culture.

We Will Win the Day

We Will Win the Day
Author: Louis Moore
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2017-09-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1440839530
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This exceedingly timely book looks at the history of black activist athletes and the important role of the black community in making sure fair play existed, not only in sports, but across U.S. society. Most books that focus on ties between sports, black athletes, and the Civil Rights Movement focus on specific issues or people. They discuss, for example, how baseball was integrated or tell the stories of individuals like Jackie Robinson or Muhammad Ali. This book approaches the topic differently. By examining the connection between sports, black athletes and the Civil Rights Movement overall, it puts the athletes and their stories into the proper context. Rather than romanticizing the stories and the men and women who lived them, it uses the roles these individuals played—or chose not to play—to illuminate the complexities and nuances in the relationship between black athletes and the fight for racial equality. Arranged thematically, the book starts with Jackie Robinson's entry into baseball when he signed with the Dodgers in 1945 and ends with the revolt of black athletes in the late 1960s, symbolized by Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously raising their clenched fists during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics. Accounts from the black press and the athletes themselves help illustrate the role black athletes played in the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, the book also examines how the black public viewed sports and the contributions of black athletes during these tumultuous decades, showing how the black communities' belief in merit and democracy—combined with black athletic success—influenced the push for civil rights.