Sidelined (3 page)

There was also a “gentleman's agreement” that northern colleges would not field any black players when they played against teams in the South. Private and community-run black teams similarly suffered from this application of the color bar. In the black areas of Chicago during the early twentieth century several African American basketball teams emerged with support from organizations like the YMCA and sponsorship from the black newspaper the
Chicago Defender
. When the predominantly black Phillips High School qualified for the national championship tournament
to be held at Chicago University, it was not invited for fear that southern teams might boycott the event. When interracial contests did take place in the city they were increasingly loaded with the racial tension apparent in many northern cities in the 1920s. In racially charged postwar urban centers, white teams did not take kindly to being beaten by black players and there were incidents of violence on and off the court, as well as some less than objective refereeing.
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In the first quarter of the twentieth century interracial sporting competition was largely limited to amateur sports. Professional baseball and football adopted segregationist policies. Baseball turned professional in the late nineteenth century and the committee responsible for establishing the league outlined a policy of racial segregation. Fleetwood Walker was the last black to play in the professional leagues when his career came to an end in 1889. In the 1920s black players were gradually phased out of the National Football League (NFL), and from 1934 to 1946 no African Americans were allowed to play or try out for teams in the NFL. There was, however, less strict an apartheid in basketball. Several different leagues coexisted and allowed interracial contests before the National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed in 1949. Had the black-owned New York Renaissance team survived financially for one more season it would have been included as a part of the original NBA.
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With the erection of barriers to competition in the major league sports, separate black leagues developed and ran alongside their white counterparts as a strong reminder of the pernicious and omnipotent nature of racial separation in the United States. As Ken Shropshire asserted, “Segregation was the route adopted by America and this included sports. Jim Crow laws were meant for all.”
¹⁰

The 1930s and 1940s saw the emergence of new protest tactics and symbolism that were increasingly exploited by African Americans. The contradictory image of Americans fighting for freedom in World War II while Jim Crow was ascendant at home was politicized by African American leaders. The New Deal and World War II heightened racial consciousness in the black community and inspired increased civil rights activism among the black working and professional classes.
¹¹
There was a sense that African Americans were more forcefully pushing at the door to equality than ever before. The African American sportsman's role in this era was to provide a symbolic exemplification of racial pride, albeit in a relatively submissive way. Their visibility in American mainstream culture played a key role in promoting sport as an area of society with a prominent responsibility for the slow crumbling of the edifice of racial segregation.

The example of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics as an all-American hero who defied the doctrine of Aryan superiority through sporting prowess played a key role in laying the foundations for the belief in sport as a color-blind institution. Indeed, Owens himself went on to preach this ideal as a sporting commentator and administrator. In the decades that followed the Berlin Olympics and the world-title-winning exploits of Joe Louis, a generation of outstanding black athletes was able to push on the doors to integrated competition. In 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first black major league baseball player of the modern era. A year earlier Kenny Washington, who had been a roommate of Jackie Robinson at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), had become the first black player to feature in the NFL since the 1930s.
¹²
On the campus of New York University in 1940 and 1941 students protested against racial discrimination in intercollegiate competition. A significant number of the student body protested the continuance of the gentleman's agreement that saw black players dropped from the university team when playing games in the South. Seven students were suspended following the organization of a petition, and 150 of their fellows protested with a sit-in to express their objection to the university's policy. This policy, however, remained unchanged and the gentleman's agreement continued.
¹³

The stimulus provided by World War II, which was then increased by the 1954
Brown v. Board of Education
decision to desegregate public schooling, increased the pace of racial change in the United States. This change slowly had an impact on intercollegiate sport. The 1956 test case of Abner Haynes and Leon King, who became the first black players on the North Texas State College football team, showed that sport could be used to promote racial cooperation. The black players' presence improved racial understanding largely due to the fact that Haynes and King contributed to a winning team. “Since winning benefited everyone, toleration became profitable for everyone, black and white.”
¹⁴
Sport was seen by many as leading the way in America's move toward desegregation. Heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson had insisted on integrated seating when he signed a contract to fight in Miami. As pressure grew on the Kennedy administration to make significant strides in the pursuit of civil rights, it is significant that it threw so much weight behind forcing the Washington Redskins to change their “lily-white” policy, as they eventually did with the signings of black players Bobby Mitchell and Leroy Jackson in 1961.
¹⁵

These examples and many others provided momentum for the ideal that sport ran ahead of the rest of society in the breaking down of racial barriers. It was in the sporting arena that African Americans could enjoy opportunities far beyond those of mainstream society. Writing in the
New York Times
in November 1967, Robert Lipsyte argued, rather critically, that the sporting establishment was fond of “patting itself on the back” concerning the opportunities it offered to black athletes. He did, however, balance his editorial with the acknowledgment that the sports world had offered the chance for some African Americans to gain an education and personal fulfillment. Sport also had the power to educate poor whites who valued a winning player and a star performer whatever the color of his skin.
¹⁶
Julius Avendorph, the founder of the first black baseball league in Chicago in the early twentieth century, cited “sports as the means to friendly relations between the races [and] as a means to college scholarships for black men.”
¹⁷

For a significant number of college athletes the integration of sporting competition allowed for a greater understanding of their black or white teammates. Indeed, white long jumper Phil Shinnick spoke of the “shattering of stereotypes” that took place during his time competing with black athletes. He learned that many of the stereotypical views about the physical abilities and physiological advantages of black athletes were incorrect.
¹⁸
Mixing together as a team of sportsmen was the most practical demonstration of racial integration experienced by many young Americans.

This positive view of the role played by the institution of sport was, however, increasingly challenged by both athletes and community leaders as the 1960s progressed. There was a growing desire to expose what Douglas Kellner later termed the “double-edged sword” of sporting integration for black athletes. Focusing specifically on Michael Jordan, Kellner argued that sport can be used as an arena from which to project a positive image of blackness while also serving to perpetuate negative racial stereotypes associated with blackness. Jordan was viewed as a positive black symbol, a role model for young people who transcended race and integration in American society. His blackness, however, also was overemphasized and was cited as a determining factor in his gambling and alleged links with organized crime.
¹⁹

The achievements of racial heroes like Joe Louis also emphasize this “double-edged sword.” Louis's victories over white opponents were significant symbols of the fight against racial oppression. His efforts were viewed by many in the black community as a direct assault on racial oppression; he very violently confronted and defeated white opponents in a way that a black man could not do in wider society. Furthermore, in his bouts with Max Schmeling of Germany he won the support of white America in a symbolic national conflict against fascism. Louis was a submissive figure outside of the ring, however. As part of a reaction against the brash and racially antagonistic behavior of the previous black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, he was strongly advised by his management not to challenge the prevailing racial status quo and to avoid any actions that would discredit his race.
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White Americans could cheer Louis when he fought Schmeling, knowing that he would remain a “good,” well-behaved black man. As William Van Deburg argues, they could “toast the black culture hero one day and tell ‘coon' jokes the next.” In this sense black sportsmen did not directly force racial change forward. Their role was symbolic. They gave hope and pride to the black community without confronting the racial problems of wider society. For white Americans, “it
was far easier to praise a black champion of the arena than it was to sacrifice skin-color privilege in everyday life.”
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The man who sought to give voice to those African Americans who wished to expose such contradictions and repudiate the prevailing idealism surrounding sport was Harry Edwards. He was the single most visible figure in the black athletic revolt that took place in the late 1960s. Edwards argued that racism persisted throughout the sporting world. Indeed, both King and Haynes were still treated predominantly as second-class citizens at North Texas when they were not on the football field.
²²
Willie Brown, who was appointed as the first black member of the coaching staff at the University of Southern California in 1968, recalled that racism persisted at that time. Although the situation on campus was relatively good, he still faced racial epithets and segregated facilities when he traveled with university squads.
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Top U.S. sprinter John Carlos complained that as a black man he could not get a beer in a bar in Austin despite being expected to perform with excellence for his school, East Texas State. He saw coaching staff berate black football players for dropping the ball, calling them “nigger” or “boy.” Those who complained were told that if they did not like it they could leave.
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Some white athletes were also keenly aware of the continued social prejudice that their black teammates faced on campus. T. J. Gaughan, a football player at the University of Kansas in 1968, recalled the “disheartening” way that at meal times the playing squad would racially segregate itself. The black students on campus faced a significant degree of social ostracism.
²⁵
Olympic distance walker Larry Young acknowledged the great pressure and racism that black athletes had to deal with: “When they were competing … they were treated as second-class citizens in terms of where they lived … and their social life and everything.”
²⁶
During the time he spent training in the United States, British Olympian David Hemery clearly saw the injustices black athletes encountered. He recalled the problems they faced in getting adequate off-campus accommodation.
²⁷

As a former athlete turned sociology professor, Harry Edwards sought to mobilize black student athletes in revolt against sporting administrators. He sought to shake black athletes out of their passive acceptance of the status quo and subscription to the color-blind ideal. The sporting arena was targeted both as an area in which racial injustice existed and as the place where protest would most likely gain attention and elicit concessions toward greater racial progress. Understanding this duality at the heart of the black athletic revolt is crucial when analyzing its successes and failures
and its connection to the wider black freedom struggle. The black athletic revolt certainly grew out of a realization that black sportsmen were still the victims of racial discrimination. Indeed, educating politically submissive black performers about this reality was a major challenge for the movement. That movement, however, wanted to move beyond an educating process so that black athletes could use their position to effect racial change in wider society. In this way the black athletic revolt could connect directly with the black freedom struggle.