Sports in African American Life

Drew D. Brown is an assistant professor of African American Studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Table of Contents


Introduction (Drew D. Brown)

Part I: History

We Were Better Runners: African American Women

and the Summer Olympics, 1932–1948 (Stanley Keith Arnold)

Sporting Congregations: The Foundation of Black College

Football (Derrick E. White)

From Chitlins to Championships: Limited Opportunities for African American Professional Wrestlers (Kevin Hogg)

Part II: Social Justice and Responsibility

Social Justice and Black Basketball: Playing the Game

and Off the Court (Demetrius W. Pearson)

Social Responsibility and Accountability: Dr. Harry Edwards

and the Paradox of the Black Male College Athlete (Fritz G. Polite and Jeremai E. Santiago)

African American Sport Activism and Broader Social Movements

(Joseph N. Cooper, Michael Mallery, Jr., and Charles D.T. Macaulay)

Refusing to Play Their Games! A Fanonian Analysis and Robesonian Proposition on Sports, Race and Divestment (Miciah Z. Yehudah)

Part Iii: Gender and Identity

Black Women’s Sports Experiences Beyond the Game (F. Michelle Richardson and Akilah R. ­Carter-Francique)

The Stories of Boobie Miles and Rysheed Jordan: How the

Institution of Sports Is Failing Black Male Athletes (Drew D. Brown and Christina Kanu)

“Man up”: Sport, Masculinity and African American Communities (Bruce Lee Hazelwood)

Part IV: Media and

Identity Construction: Media, Myth and Perception in Football Recruiting (Travis R. Bell)

The (African) American Dream: Spectacle and ­Post-Racial Teleology in U.S. Sports Films (Nathan ­Kalman-Lamb)

Rethinking Sports Fetishism in Contemporary African American

(Daniel Haxall)

About the Contributors

Index