"Ethnic Considerations in Athletics"

Abstract

This article examines the racial protests by African American basketball and football players at Sacramento State College between 1969 and 1971. Harry Edwards, in his seminal work <i>The Revolt of the Black Athlete</i>, indicates that there were over 30 campus protests by Black athletes in 1968 alone. As a result of his work with the Olympic Project for Human Rights and on the behalf of African American college athletes, Edwards spoke at Sacramento State in September 1968 at a symposium during Inter-racial Week. Sacramento State College, a small state school, less renowned than many of the other large universities where protests had occurred, was part of a second wave of athletic protests. This article contributes another chapter to the stories of racial protests of Black college athletes across the country in the late 1960s and the impact these activities had on their respective college campuses, as well as the broader communities.