Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football

by Lane Demas

Overview

Even the most casual sports fans celebrate the achievements of professional athletes, among them Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Yet before and after these heroes staked a claim for African Americans in professional sports, dozens of college athletes asserted their own civil rights on the amateur playing field, and continue to do so today.

Integrating the Gridiron, the first book devoted to exploring the racial politics of college athletics, examines the history of African Americans on predominantly white college football teams from the nineteenth century through today. Lane Demas compares the acceptance and treatment of black student athletes by presenting compelling stories of those who integrated teams nationwide, and illuminates race relations in a number of regions, including the South, Midwest, West Coast, and Northeast. Focused case studies examine the University of California, Los Angeles in the late 1930s; integrated football in the Midwest and the 1951 Johnny Bright incident; the southern response to black players and the 1955 integration of the Sugar Bowl; and black protest in college football and the 1969 University of Wyoming “Black 14.” Each of these issues drew national media attention and transcended the world of sports, revealing how fans—and non-fans—used college football to shape their understanding of the larger civil rights movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900813549971
Publication date:	03/11/2011
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

LANE DEMAS is an assistant professor of history at Central Michigan University, where he teaches African American and sports history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue 1

1 Beyond Jackie Robinson: Racial Integration in American College Football and New Directions in Sport History 5

2 "On the Threshold of Broad and Rich Football Pastures": Integrated College Football at UCLA, 1938-1941 28

3 "A Fist That Was Very Much Intentional": Postwar Football in the Midwest and the 1951 Johnny Bright Scandal 49

4 "We Play Anyone": Deciphering the Racial Politics of Georgia Football and the 1956 Sugar Bowl Controversy 72

5 "Beat the Devil Out of BYU": Football and Black Power in the Mountain West, 1968-1970 102

Epilogue 134

Notes 143

Selected Bibliography 169

Index 175

Editorial Reviews

"The Impact and Evolution of College Football Player Protest," by Alex Kirshner
https://www.theringer.com/2020/6/30/21307518/college-football-player-protests-black-lives-matter-movement

The Ringer

"College Athletes, Phones in Hand, Force Shift in Protest Movement" by Alan Blinder and Billy Witz
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/sports/ncaafootball/george-floyd-protests-college-sports.html

New York Times

"In using college football as a means for understanding the civil rights movement, this book reveals much about broad issues surrounding integration and the push to break down racial barriers and is a valuable resource for those interested in sports, civil rights, and African American history. Recommended."

Choice

"Lane Demas paints a richer, more nuanced portrait of how race shaped college football."

American Studies

"This book will occupy an important—and previously empty—place on the bookshelf of American sports history for many years to come."

Murray Sperbern Historical Review

"This book contributes significantly to the fields of sports history, African American history, U.S. history, and civil rights history and
provides a fresh look at the integration of college athletics from several different regions of the United States. This interregional focus illustrates the complex and multifaceted ways in which integration—primarily in college athletics—occurred in the post-World War II era. It also reveals much about the broader forces that shaped the push to dismantle barriers to political, economic, and social equality."

University of Iowa, Department of Health and Sports Studies, Associate Professor - Michael E. Lomax

"This book will occupy an important—and previously empty—place on the bookshelf of American sports history for many years to come."

American Historical Review - Murray Sperber

"This book will occupy an important—and previously empty—place on the bookshelf of American sports history for many years to come."

From the Publisher

"This book will occupy an important—and previously empty—place on the bookshelf of American sports history for many years to come."

— Murray Sperber

American Historical Review