In recent years, there has been increased attention towards activism in sporting spaces. A vast majority of these contributions have focused on intra-nation tensions and impact. Yet, there is a dearth of scholarship that has engaged in a theoretically grounded analysis of how Black sportspersons have exhibited resistance in and through sport across national borders across time, space, and context. In this text, Joseph N. Cooper introduces the Black Sporting Resistance Framework (BSRF) as an analytic lens to examine how resistance actions in and through sport have contributed to the advancement of local and global racial justice efforts. Key concepts such as African (Black) diaspora, transnationalism, internationalism, sporting resistance typology, and sport activism typology are incorporated throughout the book. Black sporting resistance is also analyzed alongside broader social movements such as the Black Liberation Struggle, Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Black Radicalism. Insights on the ways in which sport can be used to advance social justice in the future are presented.

Written by one of the leading international authorities on the sociology of race and sport, this is the first book to address sport′s role in ′the making of race′, the place of sport within black diasporic struggles for freedom and equality, and the contested location of sport in relation to the politics of recognition within contemporary multicultural societies. Race, Sport and Politics shows how, during the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea of ′the natural black athlete′ was invented in order to make sense of and curtail the political impact and cultural achievements of black sportswomen and men. More recently, ′the black athlete′ as sign has become a highly commodified object within contemporary hyper-commercialized sports-media culture thus limiting the transformative potential of critically conscious black athleticism to re-imagine what it means to be both black and human in the twenty-first century. Race, Sport and Politics will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology of culture and sport, the sociology of race and diaspora studies, postcolonial theory, cultural theory and cultural studies.

“There will be a black Springbok over my dead body.” — Dr Danie Craven, President of the South African Rugby Board, 1969 Just a year after the controversial D’Oliveira affair, the organised disruption of the all-white 1969/70 South African rugby and cricket tours to Britain represented a significant challenge to apartheid politics. Led by future cabinet minister Peter Hain, the ‘Stop the Seventy Tour’ campaign brought about the cancellation of both tours, presaging white South Africa’s expulsion from the Olympics and the end of apartheid sport altogether. With his brand of attention-grabbing, direct action sports protest, the 19-year-old Hain emerged as a hero to some and enemy to others. Now, reflecting on these experiences with fifty years of hindsight, Lord Hain, together with South Africa’s foremost sports historian and fellow anti-apartheid activist André Odendaal, shows how decades of relentless international and domestic campaigning for equality led to a Springbok team captained by black athlete Siya Kolisi winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Interspersing a wide range of examples with personal testimony, Pitch Battles explores the themes of sport, globalisation and resistance from the deep past to the present day. Published in the same year as the Stop The Tour documentary from acclaimed director Louis Myles, this compelling story of sacrifice, struggle and triumph reveals how sport should never be divorced from politics or society’s values.

In recent years, there has been increased attention garnered toward activism in sport within the United States. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick's activist act of taking a knee during the national anthem before National Football League games sparked a nationwide debate on the intersection of sports, race, and politics. Kaepernick's actions were a part of a long lineage of activism in and through sport. Prior accounts of African American activism in and through sport have been limited in the following eight areas: (1) primarily focused on one type of activism (e.g., symbolic protests/boycotts); (2) a lack of differentiation between activism and borderline activist actions (e.g., agency, pioneering, and advocacy); (3) a lack of emphasis on hybrid resistance; (4) a focus on athletes and teams versus sportspersons (i.e., media, scholars, business leaders, and community members) and institutions (i.e., historically Black colleges and universities, athletic programs, and conferences) more broadly; (5) largely focused on one era of prominent athlete activism in the 1960s; (6) principally excluded and marginalized the importance of women's role in resistance efforts (e.g., activism for social change); (7) primarily focused on activism at the intercollegiate and professional levels with less attention toward youth and interscholastic levels; and (8) a lack of theoretically driven analyses of the resistance efforts exhibited by African American sportspersons, teams, groups, organizations, and institutions. Instead of exclusively using the term activism, the author uses the broader encompassing term of resistance as the focal framework for this text. Resistance is defined as intentional and/or unintentional actions by individuals, groups, organizations, and/or institutions that challenge oppressive systems and ideological hegemony. Using adaptive race- and ethnicity-centric typologies and interdisciplinary theories, this book offers a critical analysis of African Americans' intra- and inter-generational resistance actions where, when, why, and how sport has been utilized to express their humanity, preserve their cultural heritages, empower themselves and their communities, project political views, and pursue freedom, equality, and justice.

A timely collection of deeply personal, uplifting, and powerful essays that celebrate the redemptive strength of Black joy--in the vein of Black Girls Rock, You Are Your Best Thing, and I Really Needed This Today. When Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts wrote an essay on Black joy for The Washington Post, she had no idea just how deeply it would resonate. But the outpouring of responses affirmed her own lived experience: that Black joy is not just a weapon of resistance, it is a tool for resilience. With this book, Tracey aims to gift her community with a collection of lyrical essays about the way joy has evolved, even in the midst of trauma, in her own life. Detailing these instances of joy in the context of Black culture allows us to recognize the power of Black joy as a resource to draw upon, and to challenge the one-note narratives of Black life as solely comprised of trauma and hardship. Black Joy is a collection that will recharge you. It is the kind of book that is passed between friends and offers both challenge and comfort at the end of a long day. It is an answer for anyone who needs confirmation that they are not alone and a brave place to quiet their mind and heal their soul.

In Whats My Name, Fool? sports writer Dave Zirin shows how sports express the worst - and at times the most creative, exciting, and political - features of our society. Zirins sharp and insightful commentary on the personalities, politics, and history of American sports is unlike any sports writing being done today. Zirin explores how NBA brawls highlight tensions beyond the arena, how the bold stances taken by sports unions can chart a path for the entire labor movement, and the unexplored political stirrings of a new generation of athletes who are no longer content to just ''play one game at a time.'' Whats My Name, Fool? draws on original interviews with former heavyweight champ George Foreman, Olympic athlete John Carlos, NBA player and anti-death penalty activist Etan Thomas, antiwar womens college hoopster Toni Smith, Olympic Project for Human Rights leader Lee Evans and many others. It also unearths a history of athletes ranging from Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali to Billie Jean King, who charted a new course through their athletic ability and their outspoken views.

How the government has used the Constitution to deny black Americans their legal rights From the arrival of the first twenty slaves in Jamestown to the Howard Beach Incident of 1986, Yusef Hawkins, and Rodney King, federal law enforcement has pleaded lack of authority against white violence while endorsing surveillance of black rebels and using “constitutional” military force against them. In this groundbreaking study, constitutional scholar Mary Frances Berry analyzes the reasons why millions of African Americans whose lives have improved enormously, both socially and economically, are still at risk of police abuse and largely unprotected from bias crimes.