Wiggins - More than a game: a history of the African American experience in sport

More Than a Game

Praise for More Than a Game

No one has done more to explore African Americans connection to sport, or better understands this complex history than David Wiggins. More Than a Game will become a cornerstone for courses about sport as well as a jumping off point for countless studies. This is a masterful account, sober but poignant, by the fields preeminent scholar that reveals as much about sport and race as it does about the countrys troubled history. Wiggins lays bare the past while leaving me upbeat about the future. Rob Ruck, University of Pittsburgh; author of Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL

For decades, David K. Wiggins has been the leading historian on African Americans in sport, and he shows us why in More Than a Game . With rich insight and a skilled hand, Wiggins takes us from the era of slavery through the controversy surrounding quarterback Colin Kaepernick as he explores the history and politics of race and sport in America. This is a wonderful and important book. Jaime Schultz , The Pennsylvania State University

David Wiggins, one of the most respected scholars of African American sport history, brings decades worth of knowledge to More Than a Game. This highly readable, engaging, and aptly titled text sheds valuable light on sports significance to the lives of African Americans and the communities from which they came. This book reminds us that athletic involvement and achievement among African Americans was and is a consistently powerful marker of self-empowerment and collective agency. Rita Liberti, California State University, East Bay

From the plantation to the professional playing fields, from Molineaux to Kaepernick, David Wiggins weaves his way through the history of the African American athlete. This is an essential synthesis for anybody who wants to learn about the struggle and triumphs of the African American athlete. Louis Moore, Grand Valley State University

David K. Wiggins has produced an important history about the experiences of African American athletes. He reveals how throughout history black athletes navigated and ultimately erased the color line in American sports. Anyone interested in the complex history of race and sports should read this book. Johnny Smith , co-author of Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X

In More Than a Game , David Wiggins provides a sweeping chronicle of one of the most visible venues for African Americans in American history: sport. Wiggins recounts the challenges African Americans have faced on the nations playing fields from slave plantations to contemporary arenas, excavating their enduring struggles for equality and illuminating the racialist attitudes that remain entrenched in sport even in an epoch in which black athletes have become global icons. Wiggins celebrates the triumphs of remarkable individuals while illuminating the racial structures and attitudes that have been historically embedded in both sport and the larger society. Wiggins details how African American athletes have served on the frontlines of American debates about race and racism since the early history of the republic, providing a compelling argument that when it comes to the essence of what many historians consider the fundamental American dilemmaracesporting endeavors have always been much more than mere games. Mary Dyreson , The Pennsylvania State University

The African American Experience

Series Editors: Jacqueline M. Moore and Nina Mjagkij

This series takes both chronological and thematic approaches to topics and individuals crucial to an understanding of the African American experience. The books in this series, in lively prose by established scholars, are aimed primarily at nonspecialists. They focus on topics in African American history that have broad significance and place them in their historical context. While presenting sophisticated interpretations based on primary sources and the latest scholarship, the authors tell their stories in a succinct manner, avoiding jargon and obscure language. They include selected documents that allow readers to judge the evidence for themselves and to evaluate the authors conclusions. Bridging the gap between popular and academic history, these books will bring the African American story to life.

Current Titles in the Series

Caring for Equality: A History of African American Health and Healthcare , by David McBride

Between Slavery and Freedom: Free People of Color from Settlement to the Civil War , by Julie Winch

Paying Freedoms Price: A History of African Americans in the Civil War , by Paul David Escott

A Working People: A History of African American Workers Since Emancipation , by Steven A. Reich

Enslaved Women in America: From Colonial Times to Emancipation , by Emily West

Loyalty in Time of Trial: The African American Experience during World War I , by Nina Mjagkij

Enjoy the Same Liberty: Black Americans and the Revolutionary Era , by Edward Countryman

Through the Storm, Through the Night: A History of African American Christianity , by Paul Harvey

The African American Experience during World War II , by Neil A. Wynn

To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression , by Cheryl Lynn Greenberg

African Americans Confront Lynching: Strategies of Resistance from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era , by Christopher Waldrep

Lift Every Voice: The History of African American Music , by Burton W. Peretti

Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer , by Jerald Podair

The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms , by James E. Westheider

A. Philip Randolph: A Life in the Vanguard , by Andrew E. Kersten

African Americans in the Jazz Age: A Decade of Struggle and Promise , by Mark R. Schneider

Slavery in Colonial America, 16191776 , by Betty Wood

Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift , by Jacqueline M. Moore

More Than a Game

A History of the African American Experience in Sport

David K. Wiggins

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Copyright 2018 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

978-1-4422-4896-0 (cloth)

978-1-4422-4898-8 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For my father

Introduction

Black athletes have struggled mightily over the years to become full participants in American sport at every level of competition. Continually faced with racial discrimination and racialist thinking, they have encountered roadblocks and a number of various constraints that have made it extraordinarily difficult to find their way intolet alone achieve successone of Americas most important and popular institutions. Black athletes have, however, persevered and carved out an important place in the history of American sport, in some cases garnering national and international acclaim and becoming household names on account of their exploits on the hardwood, track, and playing fields. This success, it should immediately be noted, has not taken place in all sports as black athletes have always been underrepresented in some sports and overrepresented in others as a result of a combination of monetary, cultural, and environmental factors. They have also competed in a sports industry that has largely been controlled by whites. With the notable exception of the separate black sports institutions established behind the walls of segregation during the interwar period, black athletes have plied their trade in an institution that has largely been run by white coaches, administrators, and owners. It has only been recently that a larger number of African Americans have assumed such positions as head coaches, athletic directors, general managers, agents, broadcasters, and owners. Not unexpectedly, the pattern of sport participation for female black athletes was decidedly different than that for their male counterparts in that they had to contend with gender as well as racial issues that have made their journey even more complicated and fraught with difficulties. In spite of this, a number of African American female athletes had outstanding careers in sport, particularly in basketball and track and field rather than such country club sports as golf and tennis.