Diversity in Sports Law

""As thorough a history of a Negro league team as can be culled from the available sources... not just the history of a team but the tale of one city in all its social complexity."" "--"The New York Times Book Review An enthralling narrative about a lost era in both baseball and American History, "Beyond the Shadow of the Senators "reveals the true story of the greatest baseball dynasty most people have never heard of--the Homestead Grays--and how the fight to integrate our national pastime began with this team.

In the spring of 1946, following the defeat of Hitler's Germany, America found itself still struggling with the subtler but no less insidious tyrannies of racism and segregation at home. In the midst of it all, Jackie Robinson, a full year away from breaking major league baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was undergoing a harrowing dress rehearsal for integration--his first spring training as a minor league prospect with the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn's AAA team. In Blackout, Chris Lamb tells what happened during these six weeks in segregated Florida--six weeks that would become a critical juncture for the national pastime and for an American society on the threshold of a civil rights revolution. Blackout chronicles Robinson's tremendous ordeal during that crucial spring training--how he struggled on the field and off. The restaurants and hotels that welcomed his white teammates were closed to him, and in one city after another he was prohibited from taking the field. Steeping his story in its complex cultural context, Lamb describes Robinson's determination and anxiety, the reaction of the black and white communities to his appearance, and the unique and influential role of the press--mainstream reporting, the alternative black weeklies, and the Communist Daily Worker--in the integration of baseball. Told here in detail for the first time, this story brilliantly encapsulates the larger history of a man, a sport, and a nation on the verge of great and enduring change.

While the accomplishments and influence of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali are doubtless impressive solely on their merits, these luminaries of the Black sporting experience did not emerge spontaneously. Their rise was part of a gradual evolution in social and power relations in American culture between the 1890s and 1940s that included athletes such as jockey Isaac Murphy, barnstorming pilot Bessie Coleman, and golfer Teddy Rhodes. The contributions of these early athletes to our broader collective history, and their heroic confrontations with the entrenched racism of their times, helped bring about the incremental changes that after 1945 allowed for sports to be more fully integrated. Before Jackie Robinson details and analyzes the lives of these lesser-known but important athletes within the broader history of Black liberation. These figures not only excelled in their given sports but also transcended class and racial divides in making inroads into popular culture despite the societal restrictions placed on them. They were also among the first athletes to blur the line between athletics, entertainment, and celebrity culture. This volume presents a more nuanced account of early Black American athletes' lives and their ongoing struggle for acceptance, relevance, and personal and group identity.   

This is a revealing look at the history of race relations in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century portrayed through the lives and times of the first two African-American heavyweight boxing champions, Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. Incorporating extensive research into the black press of the time, the author explores how the public careers and private lives of these two sports figures both define and explain vital national issues from the early 1900s to the late 1940s.

When Billie Jean King trounced Bobby Riggs in tennis's "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, she placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equity. In this winning combination of biography and history, Susan Ware argues that King's challenge to sexism, the supportive climate of second-wave feminism, and the legislative clout of Title IX sparked a women's sports revolution in the 1970s that fundamentally reshaped American society. While King did not single-handedly cause the revolution in women's sports, she quickly became one of its most enduring symbols, as did Title IX, a federal law that was initially passed in 1972 to attack sex discrimination in educational institutions but had its greatest impact by opening opportunities for women in sports. King's place in tennis history is secure, and now, with Game, Set, Match, she can take her rightful place as a key player in the history of feminism as well. By linking the stories of King and Title IX, Ware explains why women's sports took off in the 1970s and demonstrates how giving women a sporting chance has permanently changed American life on and off the playing field.

The campaign for racial equality in sports has both reflected and affected the campaign for racial equality in the United States. Some of the most significant and publicized stories in this campaign in the twentieth century have happened in sports, including, of course, Jackie Robinson in baseball; Jesse Owens, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos in track; Arthur Ashe in tennis; and Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali in boxing. Long after the full integration of college and professional athletics, race continues to play a major role in sports. Not long ago, sportswriters and sportscasters ignored racial issues. They now contribute to the public's evolving racial attitudes on issues both on and off the field, ranging from integration to self-determination to masculinity. From Jack Johnson to LeBron James examines the intersection of sports, race, and the media in the twentieth century and beyond. The essays are linked by a number of questions, including: How did the black and white media differ in content and context in their reporting of these stories? How did the media acknowledge race in their stories? Did the media recognize these stories as historically significant? Considering how media coverage has evolved over the years, the essays begin with the racially charged reporting of Jack Johnson's reign as heavyweight champion and carry up to the present, covering the media narratives surrounding the Michael Vick dogfighting case in a supposedly post-racial era and the media's handling of LeBron James's announcement to leave Cleveland for Miami.

Brief biographies of eight women of our time in various fields of endeavor: Audrey Hepburn, Anne Carroll Moore, Althea Gibson, Wander Landowska, Ivy Baker Priest, Florence Sabin, Edith Head, Martha Berry

This book contains 120 biographical sketches of women who changed the world, placing them in the context of their times, & taking the viewpoint that women's history has largely been ignored. The section on Mead's anthropological work also includes two lesser-known female anthropologists: Elsie Clews Parsons & Ruth Benedict. Introduction by Gloria Steinem, extensive bibliography, & three indexes: geographical, alphabetical, & occupational.

Wilma Rudolph was born black in Jim Crow Tennessee. The twentieth of 22 children, she spent most of her childhood in bed suffering from whooping cough, scarlet fever, and pneumonia. She lost the use of her left leg due to polio and wore leg braces. With dedication and hard work, she became a gifted runner, earning a track and field scholarship to Tennessee State. In 1960, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games. Her underdog story made her into a media darling, and she was the subject of countless articles, a television movie, children's books, biographies, and she even featured on a U.S. postage stamp. In this work, Smith and Liberti consider not only Rudolph's achievements, but also the ways in which those achievements are interpreted and presented as historical fact. Theories of gender, race, class, and disability collide in the story of Wilma Rudolph, and Smith and Liberti examine this collision in an effort to more fully understand how history is shaped by the cultural concerns of the present. In doing so, the authors engage with the metanarratives which define the American experience and encourage more complex and nuanced interrogations of contemporary heroic legacy.

Legislative history of PL106-210, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act - to reform unfair and anticompetitive practices in the professional boxing industry.

Tom Cushman, one of boxing's great sportswriters, followed the "Ali generation" of fighters from New York to Las Vegas, Nassau to Zaire, reporting for the Philadelphia Daily News from 1966-1982 and for the San Diego Tribune, 1982-1992. Muhammad Ali and the Greatest Heavyweight Generation chronicles the behind-the-scenes stories of the great athletes in boxing's biggest-and-best age--their victories and struggles, crimes and passions, heydays and swansongs.This collection of essays, gleaned from Cushman's personal files as well as his recent research, brings to light the backgrounds of the fighters, in and out of the ring: Liston's tragic death, Foreman's rise from hell to heaven, Holmes's crushing defeat and his great heart, Everett's murder--and everywhere, always, the unforgettable voice and charismatic volume of the astounding Muhammad Ali.