W.E.B. DuBois called for a Negro elite, the talented tenth of the African American population to become the leaders of the race. This is the story of a portion of that intelligentsia, true Renaissance men whose talents extended beyond scholarship to the fields of sport and athletic competition. They were scholar-athletes who found themselves immersed in a virtually all-white privileged and patrician world of classical studies and old world attitudes. For the most part, they achieved far beyond the expectations of a prejudiced world. They became champions, All-Americans and Olympians; later, doctors, lawyers, teachers, clergy, businessmen and political leaders. DuBois was seeking such men, although he did not likely consider athletic participation as a part of the equation. Today we recognize the contributions made by such athletes as Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali to the ascension of the African American. The men in these pages, epitomized by the likes of William Henry Lewis, Fritz Pollard and Paul Robeson, helped pave the way for those great athletes, at the same time demonstrating that the scholar athlete came from diverse social, economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds. Sport and the Talented Tenth is the first book to focus entirely on early African American athletes in predominantly white colleges and universities. Bob Wells has discovered 145 black men who, between 1879 and 1920, performed in athletics at 39 colleges in the New England states, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Their athletic experiences included involvement in 13 sports and are detailed game-by-game, meet-by-meet. Attention is paid to the problems they faced - the prejudice, discrimination and outright racism of classmates, teammates, opposing athletes, and the unwritten social policies of opposing administrations. An examination of their family backgrounds, athletic achievements, wartime service and post -graduate careers is discussed in a concluding synthesis.

Taken from "The Talented Tenth" written by W. E. B. Du Bois: The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools-intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it-this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life.

In Transcending the Talented Tenth, Joy James provocatively examines African American intellectual responses to racism and the role of elitism, sexism and anti-radicalism in black leadership politics throughout history. She begins with Du Bois' construction of "the Talented Tenth" as an elite leadership of race managers and takes us through the lives and work of radical women in the anti-lynching crusades, the civil rights and black liberation movements, as well as explores the contemporary struggles among black elites in academe.

During the African American cultural resurgence of the 1920s and 1930s, professional athletes shared the spotlight with artists and intellectuals. Negro League baseball teams played in New York City's major-league stadiums and basketball clubs shared the bill with jazz bands at late night casinos. Yet sports rarely appear in the literature on the Harlem Renaissance. Although the black intelligentsia largely dismissed the popularity of sports, the press celebrated athletics as a means to participate in the debates of the day. A few prominent writers, such as Claude McKay and James Weldon Johnson, used sports in distinctive ways to communicate their vision of the Renaissance. Meanwhile, the writers of the Harlem press promoted sports with community consciousness, insightful analysis and a playful love of language, and argued for their importance in the fight for racial equality.

This study describes the historical factors leading to and influencing development of Du Bois's radical "Talented Tenth" strategy for education and training in leadership that would transform the larger African American population and lead them to higher levels of social acceptance and independence.

Gridiron football is the king of sports – it's the biggest game in the strongest and richest country in the world. In The King of Sports, Easterbrook tells the full story of how football became so deeply ingrained in American culture. Both good and bad, he examines its impact on American society. The King of Sports explores these and many other topics: * The real harm done by concussions (it's not to NFL players). * The real way in which college football players are exploited (it's not by not being paid). * The way football helps American colleges (it's not bowl revenue) and American cities (it's not Super Bowl wins). * What happens to players who are used up and thrown away (it's not pretty). * The hidden scandal of the NFL (it's worse than you think). Using his year-long exclusive insider access to the Virginia Tech football program, where Frank Beamer has compiled the most victories of any active NFL or major-college head coach while also graduating players, Easterbrook shows how one big university "does football right." Then he reports on what's wrong with football at the youth, high school, college and professional levels. Easterbrook holds up examples of coaches and programs who put the athletes first and still win; he presents solutions to these issues and many more, showing a clear path forward for the sport as a whole.

Imagine a five-foot-two-inch-tall woman riding a Harley eight times across the continental United States. Now imagine she is black and is journeying across the country in the pre-Civil Rights era of the 1930s and '40s. That is the amazing true story of Bessie Stringfield, the woman known today as The Motorcycle Queen of Miami and the first black woman to be inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame and the Harley Davidson Hall of Fame. Stringfield was a pioneer in motorcycling during her lifetime; she rode as a civilian courier for the US military and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club in Miami, all while confronting and overcoming Jim Crow in every ride.