Forty Million Dollar Slaves

Author: William C. Rhoden
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307565742
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An explosive and absorbing discussion of race, politics, and the history of American sports.”—Ebony From Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, African American athletes have been at the center of modern culture, their on-the-field heroics admired and stratospheric earnings envied. But for all their money, fame, and achievement, says New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden, black athletes still find themselves on the periphery of true power in the multibillion-dollar industry their talent built. Provocative and controversial, Rhoden’s $40 Million Slaves weaves a compelling narrative of black athletes in the United States, from the plantation to their beginnings in nineteenth-century boxing rings to the history-making accomplishments of notable figures such as Jesse Owens, Althea Gibson, and Willie Mays. Rhoden reveals that black athletes’ “evolution” has merely been a journey from literal plantations—where sports were introduced as diversions to quell revolutionary stirrings—to today’s figurative ones, in the form of collegiate and professional sports programs. He details the “conveyor belt” that brings kids from inner cities and small towns to big-time programs, where they’re cut off from their roots and exploited by team owners, sports agents, and the media. He also sets his sights on athletes like Michael Jordan, who he says have abdicated their responsibility to the community with an apathy that borders on treason. The power black athletes have today is as limited as when masters forced their slaves to race and fight. The primary difference is, today’s shackles are invisible. Praise for Forty Million Dollar Slaves “A provocative, passionate, important, and disturbing book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant . . . a beautifully written, complex, and rich narrative.”—Washington Post Book World “A powerful call for more black athletes to give back to their communities.”—Los Angeles Times

The Invisible Line

Author: Daniel J. Sharfstein
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101475803
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

Book Description
"The Invisible Line" shines light on one of the most important, but too often hidden, aspects of American history and culture. Sharfstein's narrative of three families negotiating America's punishing racial terrain is a must read for all who are interested in the construction of race in the United States." --Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello In America, race is a riddle. The stories we tell about our past have calcified into the fiction that we are neatly divided into black or white. It is only with the widespread availability of DNA testing and the boom in genealogical research that the frequency with which individuals and entire families crossed the color line has become clear. In this sweeping history, Daniel J. Sharfstein unravels the stories of three families who represent the complexity of race in America and force us to rethink our basic assumptions about who we are. The Gibsons were wealthy landowners in the South Carolina backcountry who became white in the 1760s, ascending to the heights of the Southern elite and ultimately to the U.S. Senate. The Spencers were hardscrabble farmers in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, joining an isolated Appalachian community in the 1840s and for the better part of a century hovering on the line between white and black. The Walls were fixtures of the rising black middle class in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., only to give up everything they had fought for to become white at the dawn of the twentieth century. Together, their interwoven and intersecting stories uncover a forgotten America in which the rules of race were something to be believed but not necessarily obeyed. Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, these families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved-how the very meaning of black and white changed-over time. Cutting through centuries of myth, amnesia, and poisonous racial politics, The Invisible Line will change the way we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.

Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

Author: Michael Bennett
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642590800
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change maker. He's also one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, and he wants to make you uncomfortable. Bennett adds his unmistakable voice to discussions of racism and police violence, Black athletes and their relationship to powerful institutions like the NCAA and the NFL, the role of protest in history, and the responsibilities of athletes as role models to speak out against injustice. Following in the footsteps of activist-athletes from Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, Bennett demonstrates his outspoken leadership both on and off the field.Written with award-winning sportswriter and author Dave Zirin, Things that Make White People Uncomfortable is a sports book for our turbulent times, a memoir, and a manifesto as hilarious and engaging as it is illuminating.

From Slaveships to Scholarships

Author: Charles Pinkney
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1524693901
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 173

Book Description
In an era when black athletes are commonly compared to the African slaves, Dr. Pinckney attempts to draw a connection to William Rhoden’s “Forty Million Dollar Slaves” and Harry Edward’s earlier work about the black athletes’ integration and segregation issues. Furthermore, this book is an attempt to chronicle the past and current history of blacks in sports. This book reads like a hybrid book—part history, part sociology, and part current issues. Dr. Pinckney captures the rise and slow decline of segregation in college and professional athletics. Dr. Pinckney examines how social and political forces imposed policies of racism, and explains the social forces that eventually forced blacks and historical black colleges and universities to accept second class–segregated competition. By some accounts five hundred years ago, our African ancestors were running from the slave catcher and slave ships to avoid slavery; however, today the descendants of slaves are still running. In fact, they are running, jumping, shooting baskets, and catching odd-shaped balls for their masters. Sporting events such as track and field, football, and basketball are mainly dominated by blacks. On any given Saturday afternoon at majority-white institutions, the black athlete can be found entertaining not only their immediate white master, but their white masters in terms of the disproportionate number of white fans, including faculty, staff, and college administrators. This in itself has predated far too many black athletes to slavery and the conditions of modern-day slavery at the hand of athletics. Truly, sports in America today as we know it has psychologically damaged the black athlete.

How Football Explains America

Author: Sal Paolantonio
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1633192911
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
ESPN's Sal Paolantonio explores just how crucial football is to understanding the American psyche Using some of the most prominent voices in pro sports and cultural and media criticism, "How Football Explains America" is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America's most complex, intriguing, and popular game. It tackles varying American themes--from Manifest Destiny to "fourth and one"--as it answers the age-old question Why does America love football so much? An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair with the game and the men who make it possible, this work sheds light on how the pioneers and cowboys helped create a game that resembled their march across the continent. It explores why rugby and soccer don't excite the American male like football does and how the game's rules are continually changing to enhance the dramatic action and create a better narrative. It also investigates the eternal appeal of the heroic quarterback position, the sport's rich military lineage, and how the burgeoning medium of television identified and exploited the NFL's great characters. It is a must read for anyone interested in more fully understanding not only the game but also the nation in which it thrives. Updated throughout and with a new introduction, this edition brings "How Football Explains America" to paperback for the first time.

Breaking the Line

Author: Samuel G. Freedman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439189781
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Looks at the 1967 football season leading up to that year's black college championship between Grambling College and Florida A & M, and how it fit into the civil rights struggles of the time.

The Revolt of the Black Athlete

Author: Harry Edwards
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252051548
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
The Revolt of the Black Athlete hit sport and society like an Ali combination. This Fiftieth Anniversary edition of Harry Edwards's classic of activist scholarship arrives even as a new generation engages with the issues he explored. Edwards's new introduction and afterword revisit the revolts by athletes like Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos. At the same time, he engages with the struggles of a present still rife with racism, double-standards, and economic injustice. Again relating the rebellion of black athletes to a larger spirit of revolt among black citizens, Edwards moves his story forward to our era of protests, boycotts, and the dramatic politicization of athletes by Black Lives Matter. Incisive yet ultimately hopeful, The Revolt of the Black Athlete is the still-essential study of the conflicts at the interface of sport, race, and society.

Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back

Author: Jessica Luther
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477322175
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Triumphant wins, gut-wrenching losses, last-second shots, underdogs, competition, and loyalty—it’s fun to be a fan. But when a football player takes a hit to the head after yet another study has warned of the dangers of CTE, or when a team whose mascot was born in an era of racism and bigotry takes the field, or when a relief pitcher accused of domestic violence saves the game, how is one to cheer? Welcome to the club for sports fans who care too much. In Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, acclaimed sports writers Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson tackle the most pressing issues in sports, why they matter, and how we can do better. For the authors, “sticking to sports” is not an option—not when our taxes are paying for the stadiums, and college athletes aren’t getting paid at all. But simply quitting a favorite team won’t change corrupt and deplorable practices, and the root causes of many of these problems are endemic in our wider society. An essential read for modern fans, Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back challenges the status quo and explores how we might begin to reconcile our conscience with our fandom.

Third and a Mile

Author: William C. Rhoden
Publisher: ESPN
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Chronicling the heroic struggle to topple the sports worlds staunchest racial barrier, this volume is filled with personal anecdotes and firsthand recollections from such NFL greats as Warren Moon, Doug Williams, Donovan McNabb, and Steve McNair.

A People's History of Sports in the United States

Author: Dave Zirin
Publisher: New Press People's History
ISBN: 9781595584779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A riotously entertaining chronicle of larger-than-life sporting characters and dramatic contests, this is an alternative political history of the United States as seen through the games its people played. Replete with surprises for seasoned sports, it will also amaze anyone interested in history with the connections Zirin draws between politics and sports. A groundbreaking book, it looks at the history of sports in the US through the lens of politics and culture, and shows how athlete-rebels have used sports for social and political change.