Sidelined: How American Sports Challenged the Black Freedom Struggle

by Simon Henderson

Overview

In 1968, noted sociologist Harry Edwards established the Olympic Project for Human Rights, calling for a boycott of that year's games in Mexico City as a demonstration against racial discrimination in the United States and around the world. Though the boycott never materialized, Edwards's ideas struck a chord with athletes and incited African American Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos to protest by raising their black-gloved fists on the podium after receiving their medals.

Sidelined draws upon a wide range of historical materials and more than forty oral histories with athletes and administrators to explore how the black athletic revolt used professional and college sports to promote the struggle for civil rights in the late 1960s. Author Simon Henderson argues that, contrary to popular perception, sports reinforced the status quo since they relegated black citizens to stereotypical roles in society. By examining activists' successes and failures in promoting racial equality on one of the most public stages in the world, Henderson sheds new light on an often-overlooked subject and gives voice to those who fought for civil rights both on the field and off.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813141565
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	06/29/2021
Series:	Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	244
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Simon Henderson is an instructor in history and sociology at Teesdale School and also lectures at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He is the author of Aspects of American History.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Preface ix

1 Locating the Black Athletic Revolt in the Black Freedom Struggle 1

2 The Olympic Project for Human Rights: Genesis and Response 27

3 The Black Athletic Revolt on Campus 61

4 Black Gloves and Gold Medals: Protests, Meanings, and Reactions at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics 89

5 Beyond Mexico City: Sport, Race, Culture, and Politics 121

6 Dixie and the Absence of a Black Athletic Revolt 149

Conclusion 179

Acknowledgments 185

Notes 187

Bibliography 209

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

"This book adds significantly to our understanding of the interconnections among sport, race, and the civil rights movement in the United States."—David K. Wiggins, coeditor of Rivals: Legendary Matchups That Made Sports History

From the Publisher

Sidelined is the first work to grapple significantly with the social belief that integrated sports indicated a significant advance in race relations, demonstrating that sports institutions disseminated the belief and that politics should not be interjected into sports, for example, as it was to undermine a proposed black boycott of the 1968 Olympics and related student-athlete protests. The book makes excellent use of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) files that demonstrate those organizations viewed athletes' protests as public relations crises and were rarely concerned with addressing athletes' concerns. The book advances discussion of sports' social utility by demonstrating that much of society expected sports to reflect the liberal status quo and that dissenting athletes, like other progressives, were repressed by the (sports) establishment. [...]Sidelined is insightful concerning the connections between the black freedom movement and black athletes' protests and is well researched.

Journal of Sports History