Race and Resistance in Boston: A Contested Sports History

Named a 2025Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Boston is a city known for its sports as well as its troubled racial conflict. But generations of Black athletes, teams, sportswriters, and front-office executives have exercised historic influence in Boston over the years as they advocated for racial integration and transformed their sports into modes of racial pride, resistance, and cultural expression. Race and Resistance in Boston goes beyond the familiar topics associated with the city’s premiere professional teams, the Red Sox and the Celtics, to recount the long history of Black sporting culture in the city.

This collection takes a close look at Black Bostonians’ involvement in sports as varied as soccer, cricket, boxing, baseball, golf, tennis, basketball, and hockey―and illuminates the effect of Boston’s desegregation and busing crisis on scholastic athletics in the 1970s and 1980s. With personal reminiscences from former New England Patriot Devin McCourty and journalist Bijan Bayne, as well as research from scholars of sport, Race and Resistance in Boston captures the intersection of Black history and sporting culture in America’s City on a Hill.

Robert Cvornyek is professor emeritus of history at Rhode Island College. He is the author of Black Grays and Colored Giants: A Comprehensive Guide to Black Baseball in Rhode Island, 1870–1949. Douglas Stark is a museum consultant and sports historian. He is the author of The James Naismith Reader: Basketball in His Own Words (Nebraska, 2021). Devin McCourty played his entire thirteen-year NFL career with the New England Patriots, winning three Super Bowls.