African Americans have made substantial contributions to the sporting world, and vice versa. This wide-ranging collection of new essays explores the inextricable ties between sports and African American life and culture. Contributors critically address important topics such as the historical context of African American participation in major U.S. sports, social justice and responsibility, gender and identity, and media and art.

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.

African American Lives offers up-to-date, authoritative biographies of some 600 noteworthy African Americans. These 1,000-3,000 word biographies, selected from over five thousand entries in the forthcoming eight-volume African American National Biography, illuminate African-American history through the immediacy of individual experience. From Esteban, the earliest known African to set foot in North America in 1528, right up to the continuing careers of Venus and Serena Williams, these stories of the renowned and the near forgotten give us a new view of American history. Our past is revealed from personal perspectives that in turn inspire, move, entertain, and even infuriate the reader. Subjects include slaves and abolitionists, writers, politicians, and business people, musicians and dancers, artists and athletes, victims of injustice and the lawyers, journalists, and civil rights leaders who gave them a voice. Their experiences and accomplishments combine to expose the complexity of race as an overriding issue in America's past and present. African American Lives features frequent cross-references among related entries, over 300 illustrations, and a general index, supplemented by indexes organized by chronology, occupation or area of renown, and winners of particular honors such as the Spingarn Medal, Nobel Prize, and Pulitzer Prize.

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.

Race, Sport and the American Dream (2007) won the annual North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Best Book Award, announced at the Society''s 2008 annual conference. Race, Sport and the American Dream reports the main findings of a long term research project investigating the scope and consequences of the deepening relationship between African American males and the institution of sport. While there is some scholarly literature on the topic, author Earl Smith tries to understand through this project how sport has changed the nature of African American Civil Society and has come to be a major influence on economic opportunities, schooling and the shaping of African American family life. The third edition of Race, Sport and the American Dream improves upon the second edition in four key ways: (1) by updating the empirical data so that it is the most current on the market, (2) by expanding the discussion of the Athletic Industrial Complex (AIC) to include a robust discussion of the explosion of Conference Realignment, (3) by expanding the discussion of leadership in SportsWorld to include the most current theory in the area of sports management and (4) by adding an entirely new chapter on male athletes and violence against women. In addition, the third edition expands the discussion of the elusive American Dream and the role of sports in accessing better life chances, success and happiness. The third edition of Race, Sport and the American Dream also includes a discussion of the increased role that social media plays in SportsWorld by allowing everyone and anyone to become a "sports critic" as well as a discussion of race in SportsWorld in the era of changing the racial landscape of the US. Specifically, the US has become more racially diverse and critics are debating the role that the election of the first African American president plays in this changing landscape. All in all, the third edition of Race, Sport and the American Dream expands on existing discussions and provides new areas of inquiry. This book is intended to provide social scientists and others interested in sports with an understanding of carefully selected issues related to the African American athlete. Smith examines the world of amateur sports (Olympic and intercollegiate sport) using Immanuel Wallerstein''s "World-Systems Paradigm" which provides a lens with which to examine the colonizing and exploitative nature of intercollegiate sports and the special arrangements that universities have with SportsWorld. All of the topics in this book are addressed within the context of the history of racial oppression that has dominated race relations in the United States since its inception as a nation-state in the 1620s. Across a variety of topics including sport as big business--which Smith terms the Athletic Industrial Complex--to criminal behavior by athletes, to the lack of leadership opportunities for African American athletes, to the question of the biological superiority of African American athletes, Smith argues that any discussion of race and sport must be understood within this context of power and domination. Otherwise the importance of the question itself will always be (a) misunderstood or (b) underestimated. "Dr. Earl Smith''s 3rd edition of Race, Sport and the American Dream is much-needed scholarship for understanding the life chances for not only young African American athletes -- competing in a new global sports marketplace -- but their family''s investments in sports. His analysis is crisp, insightful and he brings to this 3rd edition new empirical evidence for understanding a whole set of interlocking and very complicated issues that have exploded in SportsWorld since the 2nd edition, including, but not limited to: NCAA conference realignment and its impact on college athletes; violence against women perpetrated by college and professional athletes; and a complex theoretical analysis of the decline of Black head coaches, especially in college and professional football and other challenges African Americans face in their lives after sports." -- Kenneth L. Shropshire, David W. Hauck Professor at the University of Pennsylvania''s Wharton School of Business, Director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative. His most recent book is Negotiate Like the Pros: A Top Sports Negotiator''s Lessons for Making Deals, Building Relationships and Getting What You Want. "Earl Smith has been a scholar on the issue of race and sport for many years. His Race, Sport and the American Dream is essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. He organized the book in a clear layout that puts forth an important lens on the issue. He gives us theory that demonstrates the mighty struggles of African Americans in sport but also is real-life enough to help us feel both the pain of the barriers and the joy in overcoming them." -- Richard Lapchick, Director, Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, University of Central Florida "This well-documented book provides insights into race and sport, as African American athletes have made their way along the path toward an equal playing field and the American dream. Summing up: Recommended." -- CHOICE Magazine

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.

Explores the often overlooked role of the NFL in the American civil rights movement Watching a football game on a Sunday evening, most sports fans do not realize the profound impact the National Football League had on the civil rights movement. Similarly, in a sport where seven out of ten players are Black, few are fully aware of the history and contributions of their athletic forebears. Among the touchdowns and tackles lies a rich history of African American life and the struggle to achieve equal rights. Outside the Lines traces how football laid a foundation for social change long before the judicial system formally recognized the inequalities of racial separation. Integrating teams to include white and Black athletes alike fifty years before the reversal of Plessy v Ferguson, the National Football League served as a microcosmic fishbowl of the highs and lows—the trials and triumphs—of racial integration. In this chronicle of the important stories of Black NFL athletes in the early twentieth century, Charles K. Ross has given us an important insight into the role of sports in the fight for racial justice.

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.

A “provocative, disturbing, important” look at how society’s obsession with athletic achievement undermines African Americans (The New York Times). Very few pastimes in America cross racial, regional, cultural, and economic boundaries the way sports do. From the near-religious respect for Sunday Night Football to obsessions with stars like Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, and Michael Jordan, sports are as much a part of our national DNA as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But hidden within this reverence—shared by the media, corporate America, even the athletes themselves—is a dark narrative of division, social pathology, and racism. In Darwin’s Athletes, John Hoberman takes a controversial look at the profound and disturbing effect that the worship of sports, and specifically of black players, has on national race relations. From exposing the perpetuation of stereotypes of African American violence and criminality to examining the effect that athletic dominance has on perceptions of intelligence to delving into misconceptions of racial biology, Hoberman tackles difficult questions about the sometimes subtle ways that bigotry can be reinforced, and the nature of discrimination. An important discussion on sports, cultural attitudes, and dangerous prejudices, Darwin’s Athletes is a “provocative book” that serves as required reading in the ongoing debate of America’s racial divide (Publishers Weekly).

Practicing sports lawyer Shropshire (legal studies, U. of Pennsylvania) points out the racism still institutionalized in American professional sports, distills the attitudes that allow it to persevere, and recommends strategies for redressing the situation. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR