A Spectacular Leap

A Spectacular Leap PDF Author: Jennifer H. Lansbury
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286582
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
When high jumper Alice Coachman won the high jump title at the 1941 national championships with "a spectacular leap," African American women had been participating in competitive sport for close to twenty-five years. Yet it would be another twenty years before they would experience something akin to the national fame and recognition that African American men had known since the 1930s, the days of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. From the 1920s, when black women athletes were confined to competing within the black community, through the heady days of the late twentieth century when they ruled the world of women's track and field, African American women found sport opened the door to a better life. However, they also discovered that success meant challenging perceptions that many Americans--both black and white--held of them. Through the stories of six athletes--Coachman, Ora Washington, Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudloph, Wyomia Tyus, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee--Jennifer H. Lansbury deftly follows the emergence of black women athletes from the African American community; their confrontations with contemporary attitudes of race, class, and gender; and their encounters with the civil rights movement. Uncovering the various strategies the athletes use to beat back stereotypes, Lansbury explores the fullness of African American women's relationship with sport in the twentieth century.

A Spectacular Leap

A Spectacular Leap PDF Author: Jennifer H. Lansbury
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286582
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
When high jumper Alice Coachman won the high jump title at the 1941 national championships with "a spectacular leap," African American women had been participating in competitive sport for close to twenty-five years. Yet it would be another twenty years before they would experience something akin to the national fame and recognition that African American men had known since the 1930s, the days of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. From the 1920s, when black women athletes were confined to competing within the black community, through the heady days of the late twentieth century when they ruled the world of women's track and field, African American women found sport opened the door to a better life. However, they also discovered that success meant challenging perceptions that many Americans--both black and white--held of them. Through the stories of six athletes--Coachman, Ora Washington, Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudloph, Wyomia Tyus, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee--Jennifer H. Lansbury deftly follows the emergence of black women athletes from the African American community; their confrontations with contemporary attitudes of race, class, and gender; and their encounters with the civil rights movement. Uncovering the various strategies the athletes use to beat back stereotypes, Lansbury explores the fullness of African American women's relationship with sport in the twentieth century.

A Spectacular Leap ,Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America

A Spectacular Leap ,Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America PDF Author: Jennifer Lansbury
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781438199313
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Coming On Strong

Coming On Strong PDF Author: Susan K. Cahn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This study of women in sport draws upon historical records and contemporary interviews to reveal the struggles women have faced.

Defending the American Way of Life

Defending the American Way of Life PDF Author: Kevin B. Witherspoon
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1610756525
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
The Cold War was fought in every corner of society, including in the sport and entertainment industries. Recognizing the importance of culture in the battle for hearts and minds, the United States, like the Soviet Union, attempted to win the favor of citizens in nonaligned states through the soft power of sport. Athletes became de facto ambassadors of US interests, their wins and losses serving as emblems of broader efforts to shield American culture—both at home and abroad—against communism. In Defending the American Way of Life, leading sport historians present new perspectives on high-profile issues in this era of sport history alongside research drawn from previously untapped archival sources to highlight the ways that sports influenced and were influenced by Cold War politics. Surveying the significance of sports in Cold War America through lenses of race, gender, diplomacy, cultural infiltration, anti-communist hysteria, doping, state intervention, and more, this collection illustrates how this conflict remains relevant to US sporting institutions, organizations, and ideologies today.

Sports in African American Life

Sports in African American Life PDF Author: Drew D. Brown
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476669643
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
African Americans have made substantial contributions to the sporting world, and vice versa. This wide-ranging collection of new essays explores the inextricable ties between sports and African American life and culture. Contributors critically address important topics such as the historical context of African American participation in major U.S. sports, social justice and responsibility, gender and identity, and media and art.

Serving Herself

Serving Herself PDF Author: Ashley Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197551750
Category : African American tennis players
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
"Coming Up the Hard Way "Sometimes, in a tough neighborhood, where there is no way for a kid to prove himself except by playing games and fighting, you've got to establish a record for being able to look out for yourself before they will leave you alone. If they think you're an easy mark, they will all look to build up their own reputations by beating up on you. I learned always to get in the first punch." Althea Gibson, 1958 Four days after her historic victory at Wimbledon in July 1957, Althea Gibson sat at the head table between her parents during a luncheon held in her honor at New York City's famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Wearing a dress of red and blue silk with a corsage pinned to her lapel, she listened as local officials sang her praises. Gibson was "an American girl," "a real lady," and "a wonderful ambassador ... [and] saleswoman" for the country, they said. Speaker after speaker reached for superlatives and generalities to pay tribute to Gibson for rising improbably from "the sidewalks of New York," in the words of Mayor Robert F. Wagner, to winning the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. The commissioner of the department of commerce and public events cut closest to the truth with six words: "She came up the hard way""--

A Black Women's History of the United States

A Black Women's History of the United States PDF Author: Daina Ramey Berry
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807033561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
2021 NAACP Image Award Nominee: Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction Honorable Mention for the 2021 Organization of American Historians Darlene Clark Hine Award A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today. A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.

Sport and Recreation in Canadian History

Sport and Recreation in Canadian History PDF Author: Carly Adams
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 1492599204
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Serving as a foundation for critical discussion about the importance of the past, Sport and Recreation in Canadian History covers the historical events, people, and moments that shape Canadian sport in the present and future. While this text focuses on sport and recreation practices on these lands now claimed by Canada, it is set within a larger historical context of interconnecting social and cultural practices to speak to the sustained tensions, complexities, and contradictions prevalent in Canadian society. The editor, Dr. Carly Adams, and her 17 contributing experts from across Canada bring the latest research in all areas of Canadian sport history to life and present a thorough look at the nation’s past events. The text challenges the dominant narratives and encourages students to think critically about Canadian sport history. It examines how gender, ethnicity, race, religion, ability, class, and other systems of oppression and privilege have shaped sport and recreation practices, with Canadian sporting culture reproducing many of the same oppressive systems that exist on the larger scale. Sport and Recreation in Canadian History separates itself from its competitors by providing an abundance of pedagogical aids. Sidebars highlighting prominent people provide glimpses of figures who made a significant impact on Canadian sport history. Transformative Moment sidebars focus on significant events as they relate to specific themes, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, or ability. A comprehensive timeline showcases where important events fell in relation to one another, while the text acknowledges the problem of presenting history in a linear way and provides a more nuanced discussion of time. Descriptions of primary source documents—such as newspaper articles, photographs, and historical documents—are accompanied by explanations of how sport historians work with these documents. Sport and Recreation in Canadian History asks readers to think differently about the history of Canadian sport, and it examines how past people, moments, and events continue to shape 21st-century sport.

Kenya's Running Women

Kenya's Running Women PDF Author: Michelle M Sikes
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628955147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Since Pauline Konga’s breakthrough performance at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, the world has become accustomed to seeing Kenyan women medal at major championships, sweep marathons, and set world records. Yet little is known about the pioneer generation of women who paved the way for Kenya’s reputation as an international powerhouse in women’s track and field. In Kenya’s Running Women: A History, historian and former professional runner Michelle M. Sikes details the triumphs and many challenges these women faced, from the advent of Kenya’s athletics program in the colonial era through the professionalization of running in the 1980s and 1990s. Sikes reveals how over time running became a vehicle for Kenyan women to expand the boundaries of acceptable female behavior. Kenya’s Running Women demonstrates the necessity of including women in histories of African sport, and of incorporating sport into studies of African gender and nation-building.

Don't Stick to Sports

Don't Stick to Sports PDF Author: Derek Charles Catsam
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538144727
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A significant examination of how athletes have fought for inclusion and equality on and off the playing field, despite calls for them to “stick to sports.” The claim that sports are—or ought to be—apolitical has itself never been an apolitical position. Rather, it is a veiled attempt to control which politics are acceptable in the athletic realm, a designation intricately linked to issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and more. In Don't Stick to Sports: The American Athlete’s Fight against Injustice, Derek Charles Catsam carefully explores this disparity. He looks at how, throughout recent sports history in the United States, minority athletes have had to fight every step of the way for their right to compete, and how they continue to fight for equity today. From African Americans and women to LGBTQ+ and religious minorities, Catsam shows how these athletes have taken a stand to address the underlying injustices in sports and society despite being told it’s not their place to do so. While it’s impossible for a single book to tell the entire history of exclusion in the sporting world, Don’t Stick to Sports looks at key moments from the World War I era to the present to shatter the myth of sports as a meritocracy, of sports-as-equalizer, highlighting the reality as something far more complicated—of sports as a malleable world where exclusion and inclusion are rarely straight-forward.