Boston's Black Athletes

Boston's Black Athletes PDF Author: Robert Cvornyek
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781666909043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Boston's Black Athletes interprets Boston's contested racial history through the diverse experiences of the city's African American sports figures. The contributors explore a variety of representative athletes that negotiated Boston's racial boundaries at sequential moments in time to demonstrate Boston's long and troubled racial history.

Boston's Black Athletes

Boston's Black Athletes PDF Author: Robert Cvornyek
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781666909043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Boston's Black Athletes interprets Boston's contested racial history through the diverse experiences of the city's African American sports figures. The contributors explore a variety of representative athletes that negotiated Boston's racial boundaries at sequential moments in time to demonstrate Boston's long and troubled racial history.

Boston’s Black Athletes

Boston’s Black Athletes PDF Author: Robert Cvornyek
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 166690905X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Sport often mirrored the racial climate of the time, but it also informed and encouraged equality on and off the field. In Boston, the Black athletic body historically represented a challenge to the city’s liberal image. Boston's Black Athletes: Identity, Performance, and Activism interprets Boston’s contested racial history through the diverse experiences of the city’s African American sports figures who directed their talent toward the struggle for social justice. Editors Robert Cvornyek and Douglas Stark and the contributors explore a variety of representative athletes, such as Kittie Knox, Louise Stokes, and Medina Dixon, that negotiated Boston’s racial boundaries at sequential moments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to demonstrate Boston’s long and troubled racial history. The contributors’ biographical sketches are grounded in stories that have remained memorable within Boston’s Black neighborhoods. In recounting the struggles and triumphs of these individuals, this book amplifies their stories and reminds readers that Boston’s Black sports fans found a historic consistency in their athletes to shape racial identity and cultural expression.

Shut Out

Shut Out PDF Author: Howard Bryant
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135297762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Shut Out is the compelling story of Boston's racial divide viewed through the lens of one of the city's greatest institutions - its baseball team, and told from the perspective of Boston native and noted sports writer Howard Bryant. This well written and poignant work contains striking interviews in which blacks who played for the Red Sox speak for the first time about their experiences in Boston, as well as groundbreaking chapter that details Jackie Robinson's ill-fated tryout with the Boston Red Sox and the humiliation that followed.

The Last Pass

The Last Pass PDF Author: Gary M. Pomerantz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735223637
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, comes an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret About to turn ninety, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell. These teammates were basketball's Ruth and Gehrig, and Cooz, as everyone calls him, was famously ahead of his time as an NBA player in terms of race and civil rights. But as the decades passed, Cousy blamed himself for not having done enough, for not having understood the depth of prejudice Russell faced as an African-American star in a city with a fraught history regarding race. Cousy wishes he had defended Russell publicly, and that he had told him privately that he had his back. At this late hour, he confided to acclaimed historian Gary Pomerantz over the course of many interviews, he would like to make amends. At the heart of the story The Last Pass tells is the relationship between these two iconic athletes. The book is also in a way Bob Cousy's last testament on his complex and fascinating life. As a sports story alone it has few parallels: An poor kid whose immigrant French parents suffered a dysfunctional marriage, the young Cousy escaped to the New York City playgrounds, where he became an urban legend known as the Houdini of the Hardwood. The legend exploded nationally in 1950, his first year as a Celtic: he would be an all-star all 13 of his NBA seasons. But even as Cousy's on-court imagination and daring brought new attention to the pro game, the Celtics struggled until Coach Red Auerbach landed Russell in 1956. Cooz and Russ fit beautifully together on the court, and the Celtics dynasty was born. To Boston's white sportswriters it was Cousy's team, not Russell's, and as the civil rights movement took flight, and Russell became more publicly involved in it, there were some ugly repercussions in the community, more hurtful to Russell than Cousy feels he understood at the time. The Last Pass situates the Celtics dynasty against the full dramatic canvas of American life in the 50s and 60s. It is an enthralling portrait of the heart of this legendary team that throws open a window onto the wider world at a time of wrenching social change. Ultimately it is a book about the legacy of a life: what matters to us in the end, long after the arena lights have been turned off and we are alone with our memories. On August 22, 2019, Bob Cousy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Better than the Best

Better than the Best PDF Author: John C. Walter
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295801697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
In these engaging and forthright interviews, thirteen African American athletes talk about how they endured through pain, loneliness, and rejection to become champions. In sports as diverse as football and fencing, wrestling and track and field, these men and women triumphed over the odds to become better than the best. Their legacy is in their accomplishments and in their determination to continue contributing to the societal transformation their efforts helped make possible. A V Ethel Willis White Book

Taboo

Taboo PDF Author: Jon Entine
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786724501
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this? Drawing on the latest scientific research, journalist Jon Entine makes an irrefutable case for black athletic superiority. We learn how scientists have used numerous, bogus "scientific" methods to prove that blacks were either more or less superior physically, and how racist scientists have often equated physical prowess with intellectual deficiency. Entine recalls the long, hard road to integration, both on the field and in society. And he shows why it isn't just being black that matters—it makes a huge difference as to where in Africa your ancestors are from.Equal parts sports, science and examination of why this topic is so sensitive, Taboois a book that will spark national debate.

The Boston Book of Sports -- From Puritans to Professionals

The Boston Book of Sports -- From Puritans to Professionals PDF Author: Mathew R. Sgan
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453551360
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Boston is a sports town. It has been at the forefront of sports development and innovation from the earliest days. Neither the opposition of the clergy nor the strictness of the laws could keep all of the Puritans away from the seventeenth century tavern games all of the time. The Boston Book of Sports is a comprehensive survey of sports and recreational activity in and around Boston from 1630 to 1980. In the mid 17th century the local authorities frowned on sports for many reasons including that it gave people pleasure and reduced work efficiency. But the influence of the Mother country, successive waves of immigrants, and many other domestic social/cultural themes changed all that. In the rules and regulations (1642) of Harvard College, the only exercise allowed was to “read the scriptures twice a day.” New England and Puritan asceticism, economic scarcity, and religious devotion combined to overwhelm any possibility of formal sports programs and growth. But the allure of sports is compelling and even in a hostile environment its pleasures were pursued. Toward the end of the 17th century, considerations, circumstances, and attitudes began to change rapidly. Once it changed, sports history was in the making and Boston became the cradle of sports in America. This book is about the people, places, and events of Boston sports history. It indicates the pattern of sports development in Boston from 1630 to the present, recalls the people and events that were important to that development, describes many ways in which that development and the city interacted, and explains why what happened in Boston was important regionally, nationally, and internationally. An acceptance of dancing as a recreation helped make other kinds of pleasure acceptable. As life became less arduous, Sabbath restrictions were relaxed and sports began to be perceived as a method for combating ill health. Harvard College, its students, and its alumni had a major impact on the growth local sports forms, rules, and structures as well as their diffusion to all levels and to other areas. America’s first YMCA was established in Boston in 1851, followed by a YWCA where “working girls of the city were especially invited.” The YMCA movement itself provided the setting for the creation of the uniquely American sports of basketball and volleyball. The 1852 intercollegiate rowing race between Harvard and Yale marked the formal beginning of sports competitions among educational institutions in this country; football, golf, baseball, yachting and gymnastics as part of the school curriculum all got their start in Boston. This book includes information about the background of boxing, road sports and harness racing in Boston. It recounts the beginning of the Boston Athletic Association, and even describes ‘sand parks’ which led to the organized play movement in the U.S and later extended to adolescent playgrounds where sports and recreation were taught and encouraged. Boston might well be said to be the cradle of sports in America. It hosted America’s first World Series, its first marathon, its first Davis Cup match. Bicycling, figure skating, golf, squash, lacrosse, field and ice hockey, are just some of the sports popularized and propelled across the country by Boston teams, colleges, and clubs. This comprehensive review brings people, places, and events to life. The chapter headings illustrate the broad range of social and cultural forces that forged the development of sports and later were forged by it as it gained strength and following. Predominant attitudes toward sports are depicted in the chapter headings, which are titled according to historical periods as: • Sports as Sin: 1630-1710 • Sports as Recreation and Amusement: 1700-1810 • Sports of Health and Wealth: 1800-1860 • Sports of Campus and Clubs: 1850-1895 • Sports of Parks and Playgrounds: 1885-1920 • Sports for Amateurs and Spectators : 1910-1945 • Sport

Marathon Woman

Marathon Woman PDF Author: Kathrine Switzer
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 030682566X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to officially run what was then the all male Boston Marathon, infuriating one of the event's directors who attempted to violently eject her. In what would become an iconic sports image, Switzer escaped and finished the race. This was a watershed moment for the sport, as well as a significant event in women's history. Including updates from the 2008 Summer Olympics, the paperback edition of Marathon Woman details the life of an incredible, pioneering athlete, and the lasting effect she's had on women's sports. Switzer's energy and drive permeate the pages of this warm, witty memoir as she describes everything from the childhood events that inspired her to succeed to her big win in the 1974 New York City Marathon, and beyond.

Forty Million Dollar Slaves

Forty Million Dollar Slaves PDF Author: William C. Rhoden
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307565742
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An explosive and absorbing discussion of race, politics, and the history of American sports.”—Ebony From Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, African American athletes have been at the center of modern culture, their on-the-field heroics admired and stratospheric earnings envied. But for all their money, fame, and achievement, says New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden, black athletes still find themselves on the periphery of true power in the multibillion-dollar industry their talent built. Provocative and controversial, Rhoden’s $40 Million Slaves weaves a compelling narrative of black athletes in the United States, from the plantation to their beginnings in nineteenth-century boxing rings to the history-making accomplishments of notable figures such as Jesse Owens, Althea Gibson, and Willie Mays. Rhoden reveals that black athletes’ “evolution” has merely been a journey from literal plantations—where sports were introduced as diversions to quell revolutionary stirrings—to today’s figurative ones, in the form of collegiate and professional sports programs. He details the “conveyor belt” that brings kids from inner cities and small towns to big-time programs, where they’re cut off from their roots and exploited by team owners, sports agents, and the media. He also sets his sights on athletes like Michael Jordan, who he says have abdicated their responsibility to the community with an apathy that borders on treason. The power black athletes have today is as limited as when masters forced their slaves to race and fight. The primary difference is, today’s shackles are invisible. Praise for Forty Million Dollar Slaves “A provocative, passionate, important, and disturbing book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant . . . a beautifully written, complex, and rich narrative.”—Washington Post Book World “A powerful call for more black athletes to give back to their communities.”—Los Angeles Times

Benching Jim Crow

Benching Jim Crow PDF Author: Charles H. Martin
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252077504
Category : Discrimination in sports
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
"Historians, sports scholars, and students will refer to Benching Jim Crow for many years to come as the standard source on the integration of intercollegiate sport."ùMark S. Dyreson, author of Making the American Team: Sport, Culture, and the Olympic Experience --