The Enduring Color Line in U.S. Athletics

Sports are an integral part of American society. Millions of dollars are spent every year on professional, collegiate, and youth athletics, and participation in and viewing of these sports both alter and reflect how one perceives the world. Beamon and Messer deftly explore sports as a social construction, and more significantly, the large role race and ethnicity play in sports and consequently sports’ influence on modern race relations. This text is ideal for courses on Sport and Society as well as Race and Ethnicity.

Krystal Beamon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and faculty Associate in Center of African American Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. She received her Bachelors (Summa Cum Laude), Masters, and Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University, where she was an All-American Track and Field athlete. Her research interests are race and ethnicity, the sociology of sport, and the contemporary African-American experience. Recent publications found in the Journal of Black Studies and the Journal of African-American Studies, explore the intersection of race and sport while examining the experience of African-American male elite athletes.

Chris M. Messer is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University-Pueblo. His research interests include social movements, organizational deviance, and criminology. His research has focused on riots and organizational/community response. He has also examined similar responses to environmental contamination in rural settings. Some of his articles have been published in outlets including The Sociological Quarterly, Deviant Behavior, Sociological Spectrum, Journal of Social History, and Journal of Black Studies.