‘Black Athletes in White Men's Games’: Race, Sport and American National Pastimes

Abstract

This essay provides an overview of the efforts made by African Americans to compete with and against their white counterparts on an equal basis in highly organised sport in the USA. These efforts have resulted in a relatively large number of African Americans participating in football, basketball, and track and very small representation in baseball, golf, tennis, stock car racing and a host of other national pastimes. A result of historical context and racism in a capitalist society, this fact has not deterred young African Americans from seeking success in sport because they view it as the only alternative to welfare, crime and life on the streets. Unfortunately, for the largest majority of impoverished young African Americans, success in sport never comes to pass and the American dream is ultimately never fully realised. Even those African Americans who managed to overcome racial barriers and achieve success in sport have done so without any opportunity of gaining some control of an institution that is extraordinarily important in the USA.

Keywords::

• athletics
• African Americans
• integration
• discrimination

Notes

^1.Hoberman, Darwin's Athletes.

^2.Early, Level Playing Field.

^3.Edwards, ‘Black Athletes’, 43–52; Rhoden, Forty Million Dollar Slaves and Hawkins, New Plantation.

^4.Wiggins, ‘Play of Slave Children’, 21–39 and Wiggins, ‘Sport and Popular Pastimes’, 61–88.

^5. See note 4 above.

^6.Breen, ‘Horses and Gentlemen’, 239–257.

^7.Marable, ‘Black Athletes in White Men's Games’, 143–149. See the chapter ‘Performing for “Old Massa”’ in David K. Wiggins, ‘Sport and Popular Pastimes in the Plantation Community: The Slave Experience’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1979, 202–247.

^8.Ownby, ‘Manhood, Memory, and White Men's Sports’, 103–118.

^9. Wiggins, ‘Sport and Popular Pastimes in the Plantation Community’, 235–238.

^10. While it would never be considered a national pastime, corn shuckings were extraordinarily important and enjoyable activities that held out special cultural meanings to slaves. See Wiggins ‘Sport and Popular Pastimes in the Plantation Community’, 203–213 and Abrahams, Singing the Master.

^11.Hotaling, Great Black Jockeys and Boulware, ‘Unworthy of Modern Refinement’, 429–448.

^12. Hotaling, Great Black Jockeys: 30.

^13. Additional information on Curtis can be found in Mackay-Smith, Colonial Quarter Race Horse and Davie, ‘Quarter Racing’, 450–452.

^14.Gorn, Manly Art; Obi, ‘Black Terror’, 99–114; Brailsford, Bareknuckles, Chap. 6 and Smith, Black Genesis, Chaps 2 and 3.

^15. Gorn, Manly Art, 36.

^16.Runstedtler, Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner, 8.

^17. Brailsford, Bareknuckles, Chap. 6 and Smith, Black Genesis, Chap. 3.

^18. Brailsford, Bareknuckles, Chap. 6 and Smith, Black Genesis, Chap. 3.

^19.Demas, Integrating the Gridiron; Berryman, ‘Early Black Leadership’, 17–28; Wiggins, ‘Prized Performers’, 164–177 and Wiggins ‘Strange Mix of Entitlement and Exploitation’, 95–113.

^20. See note 19 above.

^21. Hotaling, Great Black Jockeys; Hotaling, Wink; Wiggins, ‘Isaac Murphy’, 15–33; Wiggins, ‘Peter Jackson’, 143–163; Peterson, Peter Jackson; Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment; Zang, Fleet Walker's Divided Heart; Ritchie, Major Taylor; Balf, Major; Lucas and Smith, Saga of American Sport, 276.

^22. Wiggins, ‘Peter Jackson’, 143–163; Wiggins, ‘Isaac Murphy’, 15–32; Ritchie, Major Taylor and Lucas and Smith, Saga of American Sport, 276.

^23.Woodward, Strange Career of Jim Crow; Logan, Betrayal of the Negro and Litwack, Trouble in Mind.

^24. For an early essay on black athletes, see Zuckerman, Alan Stull, and Eyler, ‘Black Athlete’, 142–146.

^25.Wiggins, ‘Notion of Double Consciousness’, 133–155.

^26. Demas, Integrating the Gridiron; Berryman, ‘Early Black Leadership’; Wiggins, ‘Prized Performers’ and Wiggins, ‘Strange Mix of Entitlement and Exploitation’.

^27. George Poage was the first African American to compete and capture medals in Olympic competition, winning bronze medals in the 220 m and 440 m hurdle races in the 1904 Games in St. Louis. See Bunch and Robinson, Black Olympians.

^28. Hotaling, Great Black Jockeys, 311–340.

^29. Zang, Fleet Walker's Divided Heart.

^30. For a one volume survey on baseball that includes good information on black players, see Rader, Baseball.

^31. Gorn, Manly Art, esp. Chap. 4; Early, Tuxedo Junction, esp. 115–195; Early, Culture of Bruising, 5–109 and Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 1–5, 8, 41–42.

^32.Kaye, Pussycat of Prize Fighting, 8.

^33.Johnson, Black Manhattan; Wright, Black Boy; Richard Wright, ‘High Times in Harlem: Joe Louis as a Symbol of Freedom’, New Masses, July 5, 1938, 18–20; Richard Wright, ‘Joe Louis Uncovers Dynamite’, New Masses, October 8, 1935, 18, 19; Ellison, Invisible Man; Baldwin, Fire Next Time and Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

^34. See note 33 above.

^35. The search for a ‘white hope’ was perhaps never so intense than when white Americans tried to find a boxer to enter the ring against the great yet controversial black heavyweight Jack Johnson. See Roberts, Papa Jack and Ward, Unforgivable Blackness.

^36. See in particular Roberts, Papa Jack, Chap. 6.

^37. Ritchie, Major Taylor and Balf, Major.

^38. Hotaling, Great Black Jockeys, 295–301, 311–322 and Hotaling, Wink.

^39. For examples of the literature on separate sports teams, leagues and organisations, see the ‘bibliographic essay and list’ in Wiggins and Miller, Unlevel Playing Field, 447–477 and Grundy, Learning to Win.

^40.Cahn, Coming on Strong, 220.

^41. Quoted in Cahn, Coming on Strong, 133.

^42.Wiggins, ‘Edwin Bancroft Henderson’, 91–112 and George, Elevating the Game, 15, 26, 28, 29, 32.

^43. Grundy, Learning to Win, 176.

^44.Isaacs, All the Moves.

^45.Schmidt, Shaping College Football, 131.

^46. See for example, Aiello, Bayou Classic.

^47.Wiggins, ‘Biggest Classic of Them All’.

^48.Miller, ‘To Bring the Race Along Rapidly’, 119 and Oriard, King Football, 321–323.

^49.Majors, ‘Cool Pose’, 184, 185.

^50. See in particular Obi, ‘Black Terror’, 99–114; Rhoden, Forty Million Dollar Slaves, esp. Chap. 6; George, Elevating the Game, esp. 52–55, 59, 60, 74–77; Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment, esp. 19–21, 84, 191, 257, 336; Oriard, King Football, 319–327 and Houck, ‘Attacking the Rim’, 151–169.

^51. See Lester, Black Baseball's National Showcase.

^52. Early, Level Playing Field, 174.

^53. For a nice analysis of one Negro League baseball team, see Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators.

^54. Gerald Early makes this point very well in his Level Playing Field.

^55.Thomas, Globetrotting; Thomas, ‘Around the World’, 778–791; Bruce, Kansas City Monarchs, esp. 14, 15, 18–22 and Gould, For Gold and Glory, 37–41, 143–146, 148, 149.

^56. The best known work on Robinson is Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment.

^57. Information on Strode, Washington, and the integration of professional football, can be gleaned from Kaliss, Men's College Athletics; Demas, Integrating the Gridiron; Strode and Young, Goal Dust and Ross, Outside the Lines.

^58.Smith, Showdown.

^59.Martin, Benching Jim Crow.

^60. Thomas, Globetrotting. The slow pace of integration is made very clear in Martin, Benching Jim Crow. For the Hill quote, see Jason Reid, ‘A Wide Receiver Whose Route Went Well Beyond the Football Field’, Washington Post, October 16, 2012.

^61.Edwards, ‘Transformational Developments’, 19.

^62.Powell, Souled Out?, Chap. 10.

^63.Moore, Pride Against Prejudice.

^64. More scholarly work needs to be done on this first wave of African American baseball players.

^65.Comeaux and Harrison, ‘Labels of African American Ballers’, 4.

^66. Ibid.; Deron Snyder, ‘Decline in Black Players Should Concern All Who Love Baseball’ Washington Times, August 18, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2012 from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/Aug/18/Snyder.

^67.Ruck, Raceball.

^68. Chris Isidore, ‘Green Behind Decline of Blacks in Badeball’, CNN Money, April 13, 2007. Retrieved April 19, 2012 from http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/13/commentary/sportsbiz/index.htm).

^69. Gerald Early, ‘Where Have We Gone, Mr. Robinson?’, Time, April 12, 2007, 1. Retrieved April 20, 2012 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609796,00.html and Gerry Everding, ‘Blacks Aren't Playing Baseball Simply Because They Don't Want to Says Gerald Early’, Newsroom, Washington University in St. Louis, April 12, 2007, 1. Retrieved April 19, 2012 from http://news.wustl.edu/news/pages/9233.aspx.

^70. Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment, 51–54.

^71. Black sportswriters were fond of pointing out the hypocrisy that Major League Baseball best represented America's commitment to democratic principles. Wiggins, ‘Wendell Smith’, 5–29 and Rieslar, Black Writers/Black Baseball, 33–55.

^72. Ruck, Raceball.

^73. George, Elevating the Game; Boyd and Shropshire, Basketball Jones and Boyd, Young, Black, Rich, and Famous.

^74. These titles are taken from Telander, Heaven is a Playground; Mallozzi, Asphalt Gods and Axthelm, City Game.

^75.Coakley, Sports in Society, 310.

^76. Powell, Souled Out?, 252.

^77.Novak, Joy of Sports, 105.

^78. For an interesting study that examines how black boxers cope with rather than escape the ghetto, see Wacquant, ‘Social Logic of Boxing’, 221–254.

^79. Early provides the clearest statement of this argument. See Early, Level Playing Field, 202–204.

^80. Coakley, Sports in Society, 127–129.

^81. Boyd and Shropshire, Basketball Jones, 1–11.

^82. Ibid.

^83. For information on the Texas Western and University of Kentucky game see Fitzpatrick, Andthe Walls came Tumbling Down. The Russell quote is taken from Novak, Joy of Sports, 110. The comments by Terrell are discussed in Phil Taylor's ‘Too White, or All Right?’, Sports Illustrated, November 12, 2012, 108.

^84. Jason Reid, ‘No Shades of Blackness’, Washington Post, December 15, 2012. For a discussion of the NBA and its image, see Powell, Souled Out?, Chap. 5.

^85. The phrase ‘The Dilemma of the Double Burden’ was used by William Rhoden in Chap. 9 of his Forty Million Dollar Slaves. He provides these statistics on p. 225 of the book.

^86. Welch Suggs, ‘Left Behind’, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 30, 2001; Fields, ‘Title IX’, 126–145 and Craig T. Greenlee, ‘Title IX: Does Help for Women Come at the Expense of African Americans?’, Black Issues in Higher Education, April 17, 1997, 24–26.

^87. Wiggins, ‘Notion of Double-Consciousness’; Rhoden, Forty Million Dollar Slaves, 197–218 and Wiggins, ‘With all Deliberate Speed’, 329–346.

^88. For information on NASCAR, see Ownby, ‘Manhood, Memory, and White Men's Sports’, 103–118; Rybacki and Rybacki, ‘King, the Young Prince’, 294–325 and Pierce, Real NASCAR.

^89.Donovan, Hard Driving.

^90. Viv Bernstein, ‘Driver's Seat Elusive for Black Racers’, New York Times, May 19, 2012. Retrieved October 7, 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/sports/autoracing/nascar-struggles-with-diversity-as-drivers-seat-eludes-black-drivers and Bob Pockrass, ‘Drive for Diversity: NASCAR's Push to Develop Minority Drivers Moving Slowly’, Sporting News, June 4, 2012. Retrieved October 7, 2012 from http://aol.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2012-06-04/nascar-drive-for-diversity-program-darrell-wallace-jr.-brian-france.

^91.Leonard and King, ‘Revolting Black Athletes’.

^92. Graham L. Jones, ‘Dodgers Fire Campanis Over Racial Remarks’, Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1987. Retrieved November 24, 2012 from http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-09/news/mn-366_1_black-leaders; Jonathan Rowe, ‘The Greek Chorus: Jimmy the Greek Got It Wrong But So Did His Critics’, Washington Monthly, April 20, 1988, 31–34; ‘CBS Fires Don Imus Over Racial Slur’, CBS News, February 11, 2009. Retrieved June 7, 2013 from http://www.cbsnews.com/2.00_201_162.2675273.html; Chris Chase, ‘Michael Johnson Says Slavery Descendants Run Faster because of “Superior Athletic Gene”’, Yahoo Sports, July 5, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2012 from http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/michaeljohnson-says-slavery-descendants; and Cindy Boren, ‘Sergio Garcia Apologizes for “Fried Chicken” Remark About Tiger Woods (updated’, Washington Post, May 22, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2013/05/22).

^93. Coakley, Sports in Society, 286. Discussions regarding the relationship between race and athletic performance are covered in Wiggins, ‘Great Speed but Little Stamina’, 158–185; Miller, ‘Anatomy of Scientific Racism’, 119–151; Dyreson, ‘American Ideas About Race’, 173–215 and Sammons, ‘“Race” and Sport’, 203–298.

^94. See Turrini, End of Amateurism.

^95.Baker, Jesse Owens.

^96.Levine, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, esp. 281–285.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David K. Wiggins

David K. Wiggins is a professor in the School of Recreation, Health and Tourism at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia, USA. His primary research interest is the history of sport in the USA, particularly as it relates to the interconnection among race, sport and American culture. He has published a plethora of articles in highly regarded scholarly journals and written or edited nine books. He is also the former editor of Quest and the Journal of Sport History.