Moore, Louis. We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2021. Pp. 260. $24.95 paperback and e-book. Reviewed by Łukasz Muniowski Louis Moore’s We Will Win the Day is the first book in a new series from the University Press of…
By Andrew McGregor The Dallas Mavericks chose not to play the national anthem before their first thirteen homes games. This decision flew under the radar until the team welcomed fans back to the American Airlines Center on Monday. No one missed the anthem, until it suddenly became controversial yesterday. The immediate question many fans and…
Editor’s note: Please accept our apology for any inconvenience: The draft copy was posted last night instead of the final version which now appears on our blog. This post is a tribute to Kobe Bryant and first appeared in 2013 as an entry about his life and career in American Sports: A History of Icons, Idols,…
Boli, Claude. Mohamed Ali. Paris: Gallimard, 2016. 303 pages + appendices. $11.05 Paperback. Reviewed by Peter Marquis This review first appeared in Transatlatnica. Re-posted with permission. Some say he is indeed the “greatest”, the best-known person on earth, ahead of Pélé or Michael Jackson [1]. From the sidewalks of big cities where peddlers sell posters…
ESPN’s The Undefeated’s is in the process of unveiling their 50 Greatest Black Athletes. The rankings have inspired conversations across social media about black athletic excellence as well as the impact and historical significance of certain figures. As the debates unfold, we want to share our platform for sport historians (and others) to weigh in,…
By Louis Moore Fifty years ago, on July 23, 1967, routine arrests at a blind pig (an illegal after hours’ establishment) in Detroit ignited an explosive rebellion that lasted five days. That night, hometown hero, Willie Horton, of the Detroit Tigers, drove his car into the rebellion to quell the flames. It didn’t work. This…
Gems, Gerald R., ed. Before Jackie Robinson: The Transcendent Role of Black Sporting Pioneers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Pp. 324. Notes and index. $35 paperback. Reviewed by Christopher R. Davis In popular memory, one of the most significant historical developments in the twentieth-century United States, the civil rights struggle, is often reduced to…
Ross, Charles K. Mavericks, Money, and Men: The AFL, Black Players, and the Evolution of Modern Football. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016 Pp. 212. Notes, bibliography, and index. $84.50 clothback, $19.95 paperback, $19.95 e-book. By Andrew D. Linden At Super Bowl I, then known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, the Green Bay Packers easily…
By Louis Moore At this year’s ESPY Awards we witnessed a powerful force, famous black athletes coming together to attack police brutality and gun violence in America and to place themselves squarely in the growing social justice movement. These athletes, NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James used the beginning of…
Thomas, Damion L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. 232 pp. $60.00 cloth. Reviewed by Andrew D. Linden In Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics, Damion L. Thomas analyzes the US government’s use of African American athletes as tools in the ideological battle between American…
Sport in American History 