The Negro in Sports

Second edition, revised. Tall octavo. 371pp., copiously illustrated with photographs. About fine in modestly chipped very good dustwrapper with a few very faint stains. This copy owned by a Hall of Fame college football coach, Harvey Harman (1900-1969), who played football for the University of Pittsburgh before coaching at Haverford College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers. Inscribed by the author to Harman with further collegial inscriptions from James Guy Tyson (1899-1970) Howard University football star, lawyer, and director of the American Red Cross; Augustus Oliver Thornton, educator and member of the Improved Benevolent, Protective Order of Elks of the World (IBPOEW); and two others. The event that appears to have brought Henderson and Harman together was the 1950 meeting of the Pigskin Club of Washington, a largely African-American fraternal organization based upon football and organized by Dr. Charles B. Fisher in 1938. Although white, Harman gave the 1950 principal address, a testament to the organization's attempt to overcome racial prejudice through democracy in sports. Both Henderson and Tyson served in various capacities in the organization, although it does not appear that Harman was a member. An exceptionally scarce title, an interesting and important work, one of the earliest comprehensive studies of the African-American in sport. The author was the captain of the National Championship basketball team for two years, and was reportedly the first African-American "professionally trained for school work in physical education." He studied at Harvard and Howard, and held a post graduate degree from Columbia.…