THE ROLE OF SPORT IN

THE BLACK COMMUNITY*

OTHELLO HARRIS SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS

Miami University Vol. 30 No. 4
October 1997

"Athletics is to the Black community what technology is to the Japanese and what oil is to the
Arabs. We're allowing that commodity to be exploited... We really need to turn it around . . . if those
schools cannot do for us what we need done, i.e., provide an education for the next generation, then
we should be looking to steer clear of those institutions." (Charles Farrell, Director, Rainbow
Coalition for Fairness in Athletics)
While many observers would not agree with Farrell's claim that schools are responsible for the
low graduation rate of African American student athletes, most would agree that sport is a precious
commodity to the black community. The message from most of the media identifies sport as a way for
anyone who has talent and is willing to work hard to improve his or her station in life. Nearly every
article written about African American athletes by sports magazines (e.g., Sports Illustrated, Sport,
etc.) points to the athletes' rise from the ghetto, drug-infested neighborhoods, etc., as evidence of
sport's ability to elevate one's status. And, of course, they also include the obligatory comparison of
the athlete who made it to all of his or her friends who did not make it — those with or without
athletic talent.
Still, there are others who dismiss the idea that sport is a route to social mobility for African
Americans (Edwards 1973; Curry and Jiobu 1984; Eitzen and Sage 1993; Coakley 1994; Leonard
1997), and it is not unusual to find that sport sociology books and occasional magazine or newspaper
articles and vignettes detail the long odds one faces when trying to make a career of sport. Has sport
ever been the escalator that the above essays tout? What has the meaning of sport been to the black
community?
This paper examines some crucial athletic events in American sport and their impact on the
black community. It then comments on the media's role in creating / maintaining sport's status in the
black community.

.D arrell's quote, above, reveals what many believe about sport and the black
community: that the athletic prowess of young black males is a precious commodity to
the black community. No longer ignored by collegiate athletic programs, sports fran­
chises, fans and the media, African Americans have come to define certain sports
and/or sports positions. For example, the image one typically gets when listening to a
sportscaster describe a game battle between a wide receiver and a cornerback is of
black contenders engaged in a contest of skill. Black is the cornerback, receiver, bas­
ketball all-star, boxer and all-around athlete. The black athlete has arrived,
conquered many challenges and displaced many whites on the playing field.
Therefore, sport, we are told by some, has opened its doors to African Americans,
offering untold direct and indirect opportunities for social mobility.1 Farrell, cited
above, while acknowledging the exploitation that occurs in many college programs,
*
Direct all correspondence to: Othello Harris, Department of Physical Education, Health and Sport Studies,
Miami University, 152 Phillips Hall, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Fax: (513) 529-5006.
E-mail: harris_oememail.muohio.edu.
311
312 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS

appears to believe that college sport can and should provide a gateway to a better life
for African Americans. He is like many observers, coaches and former players, at least
in his belief about what sport could provide. Yet, others like Edwards (1973, 1979),
Coakley (1994), Eitzen and Sage (1993), Curry and Jiobu (1984) and Leonard (1997)
dismiss the idea that sport is an easy route to social mobility for African Americans.
What is the role of sport in the black community?
To understand the meaning of sport to the black community this paper examines
some of the crucial athletic events in American sport and their impact on the black
community. It begins with Jack Johnson at the turn of the century.

A BLACK CHAMPION

In 1908 Jack Johnson defeated Canadian Tommy Burns to become the first
black heavyweight champion of the world. But Burns was a lightly regarded cham­
pion: He had won the title from the dull Marvin Hart, who occupied the title after Jim
Jeffries retired and named Hart one of the contenders for his crown (Roberts 1983).
Johnson, perhaps realizing that there was little interest in boxing at the time, seized
the opportunity to position himself for a match with the newly crowned champion. He
followed Burns to England and Australia, seeking what he believed to be his rightful
place in the sport of boxing — as holder of the most prestigious title in the sportsworld
— the heavyweight champion.
Johnson was not the first African American to fight for the heavyweight title;
that honor goes to Tom Molineaux, a former slave from Virginia who won his freedom
as a result of defeating another slave in a match that earned his slave owner
$100,000.00 (Harris, in press). Molineaux bolted from America to England where he
would, eventually, meet the white heavyweight champion, Tom Cribb, in "the battle of
the century" nearly 100 years before Johnson fought a white champion for the title. In
a controversial match, Molineaux lost to Cribb.
Despite Molineaux's unsuccesful bid for the belt, the fact that he and a few other
slaves received special privileges and were, in rare cases, manumitted undoubtedly
led some to proclaim sport's ability to elevate the status of African Americans.
However, Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave, proclaimed, "Boxing and
wrestling, drinking and other merriments during holiday periods were the most
effective means slaveholders had for keeping down insurrection" (quoted in Sammons
1988, Pp. 31-32). For him, sport was a means of social control used by planters, not a
way to a better life for America's black population. Thus, even before Johnson and the
black boxing champions who preceded him (e.g., Dixon, Walcott and Gans) took the
stage, the discussion about the role of sport in the black community had begun.2
Johnson's accomplishments would accelerate the debate. According to Sammons:

Since prizefighting has been characterized by some as a true test of skill, courage, intelligence, and
manhood, boxing champions have traditionally stood as symbols of national and racial superiority.
Consequently, black challengers to white American champions have been perceived as threats to
white and national superiority. (1988, p. 31)

Johnson as champion was, therefore, a threat to social order and whites' beliefs
about their black brethren. His defeat of Burns so outraged some whites that they
began to search for a "Great White Hope." When Great White Hope Tournaments
THE ROLE OF SPORT IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY 313

yielded no suitable prospects for returning the crown to white America (Roberts 1983),
Jim Jeffries, the former champ who had retired undefeated, was coaxed out of retire­
ment to "wipe the Golden smile" from Johnson's face (London 1992). In a fight fraught
with implications for social Darwinism and racial superiority, Johnson easily defeated
the white hope, setting off nationwide celebrations in black America. The fight also
resulted in riots across America, principally whites attacking African Americans
(Gilmore 1973, 1975).
More important to this paper are perceptions, then, about sport and the eleva­
tion of people physically similar to the new heavyweight champion. For he had
knocked down an important wall of segregation; he had defeated notions of black ath­
letic inferiority (at least as far as boxing was concerned); he had challenged the widely
held belief that, amazing as it seems now, African Americans lacked the physical
wherewithal to compete with whites.
This caused whites to anguish about Johnson's impact on the black community
as well as what his accomplishment would mean to businesses that employed African
Americans. At least one cotton-buying firm was concerned that there would be a
shortage of field laborers after Jack Johnson won the heavyweight title because
African Americans would, in large numbers, enter the field of boxing (Roberts 1983).
Of course, boxing could no more offer opportunities to the masses of African American
males than other sports can now offer positions to the black populace. Nevertheless,
there was concern about a shift in the employment and aspirations of black workers.
On the other hand, Booker T. Washington, while castigating Johnson for public
behaviors that Washington found to be injurious to African Americans,3 seemed also
to be circumspect about sport's ability to uplift his people when he stated that "all men
should be educated along mental and spiritual lines in connection with their physical
education. A man with muscle minus brains is a useless creature" (quoted in Gilmore
1973, p. 25). Washington did not view sport as the vehicle that would take African
Americans from subordinate to equal status with whites. And some whites,
threatened by the prospect of blacks challenging whites on their terms in physical
feats, thought it wise to counsel blacks against both seeking equality (upward
mobility) through sport and behaving like Johnson. For example, Mrs. James
Crawford, vice-president of the California Women's Club, who declared herself a
friend of the black race, offered that:

the negroes . .. are to some extent a childlike race, needing guidance, schooling and encouragement.
We deny them this by encouraging them to believe that they have gained anything by having one of
their race as a champion fighter. Race riots are inevitable, when we, a superior people, allow these
people to be deluded and degraded by such false ideals. (Roberts, p. 112)

There were, during Johnson's reign, disparate beliefs about the role of sport in the
black community. Interestingly, much of the opposition to any new found hope for
prestige through sport for African Americans came from whites. This would change
when new black superstars, more to their liking, took center stage.

BLACK ATHLETIC HEROES TO AMERICANS

Unlike Jack Johnson, who was despised by whites, especially for his behavior
towards them (i.e., he behaved as if he were whites' equal), Joe Louis and Jesse Owens
314 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS

were, to some extent, loved by many white Americans. And they should have been.
They were both careful to follow whites' prescription for black behavior; that is, they
were compliant and obsequious and showed the proper amount of deference in the
presence of whites. But they also represented American might and superiority.
Whereas Johnson was seen as a hero to some segments of black America, Louis and
Owens became the first black athletic heroes to white America.
Owens was in the spotlight for a relatively short period of time. His claim to
fame was his outstanding 4-gold-medal-performance at the 1936 Olympics, which was
supposed to "check" Hitler's arrogance about his "master race." Louis's tenure was
much longer, as he held the heavyweight title for 12 years. He, too, was catapulted to
prominence and accepted by much of white America largely as a result of his
encounter with Nazism. Even now, he is perhaps more renowned for his defeat of the
German, Max Schmeling, than for winning the heavyweight title from James
Braddock.
The effect of Louis's and Owens's accomplishments was to heighten the
discussion about what sport had done, or could do, for African Americans. Sport, it
was argued, might be the first rung on the social ladder for blacks. Louis and Owens
were credited with opening doors for others in and apart from sport. If those who
followed behaved like them, African Americans were told, sport and other institutions
would be more accepting of black presence. For example, the Governor of Michigan
took it upon himself to write Louis and proclaim:

Destiny seems to have pointed you for a high rank in pugilism. Your ability to overpower others by
skill and physical force is something of which you may be proud . . . . You'll have world prominence
and money. They will mean little, Joe, if you do not use them as God intended that gifts of Nature
should be used.. . . Your race, at times in the past, has been misrepresented by others who thought
they had reached the heights... . The qualities which may soon make you a world champion should
call to the attention of people the world over, that the good in you can also be found in others of your
race.... So Joe, you may soon have on your strong hands the job of representative-at-large of your
people, (quoted in Mead 1985, Pp. 55-56)

Others, especially whites, from all sorts of occupations found it necessary to

counsel Louis and Owens about the impact of their public behavior. They were
groomed to favorably represent African Americans. Today, countless prominent
African Americans such as John Thompson, Andrew Young, Vernon Jordan and Jesse
Jackson often cite Louis's and/or Owens's accomplishments for catalyzing their own
achievement. Many felt their situations would improve or decline as a result of
Owens's, or especially Louis's, performance. Maya Angelou wrote:

If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we
were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and
ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to
be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end. (1970)

It is ironic that Louis and Owens are both credited with opening the doors to
sport and other institutions for African Americans, improving race relations (even
black newspapers said Owens was "good for the race"), and demonstrating the path
from rags to riches for blacks (through sport), yet neither retired with substantial
wealth or income and both had trouble with the IRS. Both were success stories with­
out the usual spoils of success. Still, they attained everlasting, if not universal, fame,
THE ROLE OF SPORT IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY 315

heretofore unknown to African Americans. The message from their era seemed to be
"look at what Joe and Jesse have done for race relations in America, and look at what
sport has done for them" (and by extension, "Negroes"). Whites and African
Americans, it seemed, felt that American society and, in particular, the sportsworld
were more open to African Americans. Louis and Owens had paved the way for black
athletes in other sports. Jackie Robinson would pick up where they left off.

JACKIE ROBINSON: BREAKING THE COLOR BARRIER IN TEAM SPORTS

Joe Louis and Jesse Owens changed whites' perceptions about black presence in
individual sports, but professional (and most college) team sports remained segre­
gated. Numerous reasons were given for this phenomenon, including that African
Americans lacked the interest, talent and training to compete alongside whites. But
the absence of black ballplayers in team sports had more to do with whites' reluctance
to socially interact with African Americans — or to rub elbows with blacks — than to
any of the above reasons. It was feared that many whites — players, fans, managers,
owners, etc. — would take offense at blacks acting as whites' peers in so public an
institution as sport. Also, if blacks were included in sport, what would happen to
whites' protected status in other areas?
Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodger general manager who presided over base­
ball's desegregation, worried about whites' reaction to his plan to recruit black
ballplayers. Rickey wanted to be very sure to recruit not necessarily the best black
ballplayer but one who would be tough and courageous and able to allay white fears
about the threatening nature of novel interracial interactions. During their first
meeting Rickey said to Robinson:

We can't fight our way through this, Robinson, We've got no army. There's virtually nobody on our
side. No owners, no umpires, very few newspapermen. And I'm afraid that many fans will be
hostile. Wei! be in a tough position. We can win only if we can convince the world that I'm doing
this because you're a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman. [Robinson asked] Mr. Rickey, are you
looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back? Rickey replied, I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts
enough not to fight back, (quoted in Levine 1989, Pp. 131-132)

While Robinson was not the first African American to play on a professional
sport team with and against whites, his accomplishment is, nonetheless, a significant
one: He was the first African American to play in "professional baseball" (i.e., white
major league baseball) in the twentieth century. Finally, African Americans had
reintegrated the most sacred of American athletic institutions — baseball. Soon the
belief in white athletic superiority would be crushed and replaced with a belief in
African Americans' "natural athletic advantages." With this belief came a shift in the
meaning of sport for the black community: More and more Americans believed that
sports could be a way to improve African Americans' social status.
Sociologist Hubert Blalock offers an example. In an article which purports to
describe how and why professional baseball is "an occupation which is remarkably free
of racial discrimination," Blalock asserted that:

Historically, most American minorities have entered the labor force at or very near the bottom of
the occupational ladder . . . . each immigrant group was followed by more recent arrivals to take its
place at the base of the pyramid . . . . [but] the Negro has been exposed to a different situation in
several important respects. (1962, p. 242)
316 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS

After pointing out the problems faced by skin color and condescendingly com­
menting on the tendency for the Northern born Negro to be confused with "the
criminally-prone recent black immigrants from the south," Blalock argues his main
point, which is that, unlike other white-collar occupations that African Americans find
all but closed to them, "Professional baseball has provided Negroes with one of the rel­
atively few avenues for escape from traditional blue-collar occupations" (1962, p. 242).
Following Jackie Robinson's desegregation of baseball and the subsequent desegre­
gation of professional football and basketball, many African Americans and whites,
undoubtedly, believed the same.

THE 1968 OLYMPIC PROTEST MOVEMENT

For years the dominant theme concerning sport and the black community during
the period preceding the proposed Olympic boycott was that sport had taken black
men, and a few black women, out of the "ghettoes" and provided them with opportu­
nities for social mobility. For example, George McCarty, athletic director at the
University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), proclaimed, "In general, the nigger athlete is a
little hungrier, and we have been blessed with having some real outstanding ones. We
think they've done a lot for us, and we think we've done a lot for them" (Olsen 1968, p.
15). The evidence seemed clear to many: Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, Hank Aaron and
Willie Mays, Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph and many others could be used to
demonstrate sports' capacity to increase African Americans' social status.
However, some present and former black athletes repudiated this claim. Harry
Edwards, who later organized the Olympic Project for Human Rights, argued that
sport exploited African Americans. For example, African American collegiate athletes
were denied the same housing, hotel and restaurant accommodations as their white
teammates; they were often demeaned by fans, coaches and teachers; and they were
"stacked" into positions, leaving many spots on the roster open for white competition
only. Edwards advised black collegiate athletes to become activists and to boycott the
1968 Olympics as a way to bargain for better treatment by the sports establishment.
He stated that:

once their athletic abilities are impaired by age or injury, only the ghetto beckons and they are
doomed once again to that faceless, hopeless, ignominious existence they had supposedly forever left
behind. At the end of their athletic career, black athletes do not become congressmen, as did Bob
Mathias, the white former Olympic decathlon champion, or Wilmer Mizell, ex-Pittsburgh Pirate
pitcher. Neither does the black athlete cash in on the thousands of dollars to be had from endorse­
ments, either during his professional career or after he retiree. (Edwards 1969, p. xxvii)

Edwards led a movement during the late 1960s that demanded a change in the
treatment of African Americans students, sometimes by disrupting collegiate football
and basketball contests at campuses all across America. Some colleges were forced to
cancel football games because of expected disturbances. This movement also signaled
a change in black athletes' (and perhaps the black community's) relationship to white
leadership in sports. While many whites and some African Americans still touted
sports' role as an escalator to social mobility for "ghetto blacks," many African
Americans — athletes and others — began to condemn the sport establishment for
blatant exploitation and racial discrimination. No longer would a belief in sport as the
route to increased status go unchallenged. If whites had renewed their faith in sports'
THE ROLE OF SPORT IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY 317

ability to elevate the status of the black community, they were not joined in this belief
by many of those principally involved — black athletes.

PROPOSITION 48 AND OTHER LEGISLATION BY THE NCAA

For at least the last two decades we've told Black kids who bounce balls, run around tracks and
catch touchdown passes that these things are ends unto themselves. We've raped them. We can't
afford to do it to another generation, (cited in Edwards 1984, p. 14)

According to Harry Edwards (1984), the above statement, which was made from
the floor of the 1983 NCAA convention floor, was, in part, responsible for the adoption
of Proposition 48. This required freshmen collegiate athletes, begining in 1986, to
attain a minimum 700 SAT or 15 ACT score and a 2.0 average in 11 core high school
courses to receive an athletic scholarship. The minimum SAT and ACT scores have
since been raised. It was evident that the debate over new standards for providing
athletic grants-in-aid was directly related to African American athletes' success, or
lack of success, in academic programs at colleges and universities.
Edwards has been a leader in castigating colleges for their failure to graduate
minority student athletes. Colleges, he has often said, bring black athletes to campus
to do one thing: play sport. They are not serious about the academic concerns of black
athletes, often providing them with "Mickey Mouse" courses and giving them grades
for courses never completed or mastered. So, for him there was irony in the fact that
opposition to higher academic standards for student athletes came from black college
presidents and civil rights leaders who criticized the NCAA for attempting to limit the
participation of black student-athletes by imposing rules based on scores earned by
taking racially or culturally biased examinations.
Both sides recognized that sport is unlikely to provide professional sport oppor­
tunities for most African American student-athletes, but those in opposition to
Proposition 48 (and later Proposition 42) often point to the role sport has played in the
black community for the student who would otherwise be least-disposed to go to col­
lege. Sport, they argue, may provide the means necessary (i.e., a scholarship) for the
student-athlete to improve his or her station in life. But this is only possible through
educational attainment (i.e., graduation from college). From this view sport facilitates
upward mobility.
Others believe the athlete and student roles to be incompatible for most student-
athletes in revenue-generating sports (Harris 1991, 1994). A few experience upward
mobility — directly or indirectly — through sport involvement, but for far too many
sport participation results in the abuse of student athletes.
As this essay indicates, perceptions about sport and its role in the black commu­
nity are ever shifting. At times there has been optimism about its capacity to enhance
the status of an entire group of people. At other times it has been cautiously embraced
as an escalator to a better life. During the 1960s sport was interrogated as a path to
the American Dream. And today there is a brighter outlook than during the sixties
among those who believe sport can provide opportunities for advancement outside of
the sport world. (The phrase often used now is "don't let sport use you, use it.")
While the role of sport in the black community appears to be unclear, the media
seem to be less cloudy about their view of race and sport. They bombard us with
endless articles and vignettes about how black athletes had little going for them —
318 SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS

they would come from broken or father-absent homes in dreadful neighborhoods

where residents succumbed to dashed hopes — until they found, or were found by,
sport. This is typically followed by the athlete's "admission" that if it had not been for
sport, he (and sometimes she) would be out on the street or working a menial job.
(Mississippi State University basketball player Dante Jones and the Seattle
Supersonic's Ervin Johnson are but two of the many players who were reportedly
rescued from low-paying, unfulfilling jobs by basketball.) And, in the end, the athlete,
showing a bit of humility, informs the audience that they, too, can be lifted out of
undesirable circumstances, if they would work hard at sport. The sports media would
have us hold on to the belief that sport is the way to a better life. Many are not at ease
with this assessment of sport in the black community.

NOTES

1. Direct mobility refers to one's attainment of a player position, while indirect mobility refers, typically, to
educational attainment or occupational sponsorship resulting from sport participation.

2. In 1888, George "Little Chocolate" Dixon became the first African American champion in any sport; he
was batamweight and featherweight champion. Joe Walcott followed in 1901 as welterweight champion.
Joe Gans won the lightweight title in 1902 (Rust 1985).

3. Johnson had a penchant for dating and marrying white women and for being indiscreet about his affairs.
Washington and many whites abhorred this and Johnson's ostentatious public manner.

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