Unlevel Playing Field A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Sport

Library Journal

Grouped into eight time periods, beginning with antebellum America, this collection contains several of the most significant primary documents tracing the sports experiences of African Americans. Athletes, sports historians, and some of the nation's foremost intellectuals deliver commentaries on a wide range of subjects and athletic events. There's a brief note from the great 19th-century boxer Tom Molineaux, followed shortly thereafter by Frederick Douglass's discussion of "Holiday Times" for slaves. W.E.B. Du Bois writes about "The Problem of Amusement," while Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League, wonders, "Will Colored Baseball Survive the Acid Test?" and Richard Wright analyzes Joe Louis "as a Symbol of Freedom." Harry Edwards remembers how black athletes began supporting the call for a boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games, while former gold medalist Rafer Johnson discusses how the decathlete can serve as a "community-builder." Michael Wilbon underscores the impact of Tiger Woods's record-setting performance at the 1997 Masters, a tournament that had long precluded blacks. This clearly is no standard history like Arthur Ashe's three-volume A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete but rather a collection of significant essays and/or contributions by important African Americans. For all libraries.-R.C. Cottrell, California State Univ., Chico Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.