Sports and the Racial Divide, Volume II – A Legacy of African American Athletic Activism

Contributions by Amy Bass, Ashley Farmer, Sarah K. Fields, Billy Hawkins, Kurt Edward Kemper, Michael E. Lomax, and David K. Wiggins

In Sports and the Racial Divide, Volume II: A Legacy of African American Athletic Activism, Michael E. Lomax and Billy Hawkins draw together essays that examine evolving attitudes about race, sports, and athletic activism in the US. A follow-up to Lomax’s Sports and the Racial Divide: African American and Latino Experience in an Era of Change, this second anthology links post–World War II African American protest movements to a range of contemporary social justice interventions.

Athlete activists have joined the ongoing pursuit for Black liberation and self-determination in a number of ways. Contributors examine some of these efforts, including the fight for HBCUs to enter the NCAA basketball tournament; Harry Edwards and the boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games; and US sporting culture in the post-9/11 era. Essays also detail topics like the protest efforts of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick; the link between the Black Power movement and the current Black Lives Matter movement; and the activism of athletes like Lebron James and Naomi Osaka. Collectively, these essays reveal a historical narrative in which African Americans have transformed the currency of athletic achievement into impactful political capital.