HIST3854

This class examines how race, gender, and sport intersect as sites of resistance and reform in twentieth century American life. With the intensification of Jim Crow coinciding with the professionalization and commercialization of sports, athletes of color became central to American debates about science, citizenship, class, ethnicity, sexuality, social mobility, belonging, culture, and entitlement. This seminar will be particularly interested in how athletes of color forced a place for themselves in sports like baseball, boxing, football, golf, and basketball by exercising different models of political protest, citing an urgent need for social justice reforms that spread beyond the realm of sport.