Rebellion, Resistance, and the Black Athletes of the Civil Rights Movement ______

Home , Brent Musburger, Howard Cosell, Politics and sports, Ray Robinson (activist)

FULL COURT PRESS: REBELLION, RESISTANCE, AND THE BLACK ATHLETES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ______

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton ______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

History ______

Michael Dillon McCormick

Thesis Committee Approval:

Professor Volker Janssen, Chair Professor Allison Varzally, Department of History Professor Toby C. Rider, Department of Kinesiology

Summer, 2016

ABSTRACT

During the Civil Rights era of the United States, several black athletes transcended their roles as physical competitors and transitioned into the realm of social politics. Unsatisfied with their social status as mere athletic figures, these men used their cultural relevance as a platform to demand racial equality and citizenship for all African

Americans. However, when they did, they were often met with significant resistance from the white power structures of America. Mainstream culture was willing to accept these men as sports stars and entertainers, but not as equal citizens. Lingering ideologies based upon social Darwinian beliefs and Jim Crow policies still plagued the nation, and prevented athletes like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Bill Russell from completely assimilating into American society. The result is an intersection of sport, culture, race, and politics at a critical point in the history of our nation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iv

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Jack Johnson vs. Joe Louis, A Juxtaposition of Two Opposing Character Types ...... 10

2. JACKIE ROBINSON, A RACIAL PIONEER ...... 20

Robinson as a Civil Rights Advocate ...... 28

3. MUHAMMAD ALI, A SYMBOL OF BLACK RESISTANCE ...... 37

Ali vs. the Draft ...... 45

4. BILL RUSSELL, A DOMINANT FORCE AND INTELLECTUAL ...... 53

Six-Foot, Ten-Inch Center on the Court, Seven-Foot Negro Off of It ...... 57

5. TOMMIE SMITH, JOHN CARLOS, AND CIVIL RIGHTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE ...... 69

Repercussions and Fallout from the Olympic Salute ...... 74

6. CONCLUSION ...... 85

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 90

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my mom, dad, and brother, none of this could have been possible without your unconditional love and support. To the rest of my family and friends, thank you for cheering me on through this whole process, sometimes you had more faith in me than I had for myself. And a special thanks to Dr. Volker Janssen for all of your guidance and mentoring during my time as a graduate student, and especially over the past year. Thank you.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

On the morning of October 18, 1968, United States Olympic runners Tommie

Smith and John Carlos stood on the medal podium in Mexico City and raised their gloved fists high into the air. The now famous “Black Power Salute” was a demonstration, a symbol of black struggle and solidarity, and a staunch reminder that even though they had succeeded on the field of competition, the real struggle was taking place at home in the US where millions of African Americans were still battling racial discrimination and social inequality. But rather than being applauded for their courageous and selfless act,

Smith and Carlos were instead met with severe backlash. The two Olympic medalists were immediately expelled from the Games and banned from the Olympic village. Back home, they were ostracized from the sporting community, and they and their families were targets for harsh criticism, and even death threats. As quickly as they had become

American Olympic champions, Smith and Carlos were now social outcasts. White

America was willing to embrace the two for their athletic endeavors, but it had clearly demonstrated it was not willing to allow the two black track stars to transition into the realm of social politics, nor recognize their voice as equals. In 1968, at the end of a decade marked by social reform and movement towards civil equality, the white social- classes and power structures of the US had proven they still preferred to have its black citizens simply seen, and not heard. This instant in American history and the aftermath

2 that followed is a sobering reminder that even after the culmination of the Civil Rights

Movement, and the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, our nation still remained a racially charged and volatile place. The incident provides a direct window into the psyche of the American people during this time, and it happened through the cultural institution of sport.

The intersection of sports, race, and culture during the American Civil Rights era is a fascinating space that can tell us a lot about both the nature of our society, and of our shared ideologies at the time. During the Civil Rights period, the realm of sports provided

African Americans a unique opportunity to attain success and national recognition in the largely white-dominated American culture. Their achievements on the field of competition began to slowly peel back many of the racial stereotypes that had plagued

American society since the Jim Crow era. When athletes like Jesse Owens succeeded against his white opponents, thought to be physically and mentally superior, it upended many of our ideas on racial hierarchy. Sports allowed black athletes the unique and particular opportunity to compete against their white counterparts, and a chance to prove their worth. But as black athletes continued to break the various racial barriers and boundaries within sports, it became evident that their athletic achievements did not fully extend beyond the field of competition. Owens single-handedly crushed Hitler’s myth of

Aryan supremacy at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and yet he had been reduced to racing horses to earn a living only a decade later.1 These men were debilitated by the distorted

1 David K. Wiggins, ed., Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes (Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 2006), 111.

3 belief that their athletic success earned citizenship. They might have been celebrated and respected on the field, but they remained second-class citizens off of it.

Knowing that their achievements within sports were not enough to completely change the discourse surrounding racial equality, many of these athletes used the fame garnered through sport as a rostrum to speak out on greater social issues. This was especially true during the Civil Rights era of postwar America, and with the athletes most prevalent during this time. Jackie Robinson wrote letters and published newspaper columns advocating for civil equality, Bill Russel co-authored Sports Illustrated articles regarding racial challenges in the US, and Muhammad Ali never shied away from speaking his mind about social injustice (when given the opportunity). And yet, when these athletes-turned-activists spoke out, they were either criticized or widely ignored.

Even though their words echoed the messages and rhetoric of established social activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, they seemed to remain confined to their classification as physical competitors. Even today their legacies remain incomplete, as they are more often than not remembered for their athletic achievements, and not their political activism. What is left is a notable disconnect between their ambition as intellectuals and political activists, and the reality in which they were received as physical beings. Why does this disconnect exist, however? When these athletes transcended the field of competition and spoke out on greater social issues, why were their voices seldom heard or taken seriously? When we talk about the legacies of these great men, why do we tend to focus solely on their physical achievements, and not their social and political contributions?

As a major pillar of American culture and identity, sports entertainment can be thought of as a direct window into our collective values and beliefs as a society. During the Civil Rights era, professional athletics served as one of the nation’s most powerful community building institutions, helping to define American identity and transform the cultural landscape of the US. Sports provided the American people with more than an escape from the hardships of everyday life, it gave them a visceral connection to our nation’s lived traditions and gave minorities an active role in the formation of American culture. Because sports play such a pivotal role in the history of the US, scholars have been studying and writing about sports and their impact on our culture since athletes like

Jackie Robinson rose to challenge the status quo. They tend to agree that the intersection of sport and race is a crucial field, and as a result the scholarship on black athletes and their role in the American Civil Rights Movement is vast. The current narrative on black athletes during this specific era primarily lies with two points of view. The first is that the black athletes that emerged during the Civil Rights Movement were a product of the movement, rather than a driving force behind it. This narrative supports the idea that it was a process of changing values and collective conscious that allowed those like

Robinson to break the racial boundaries in the realm of sports. In 1993, William L. Van

Deburg published New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American

Culture: 1965-1975, in which he examines the rise of Black Power and the cultural revolution it inspired. But Van DeBurg also examines the role of the black athlete as being a product of the Black Power Movement. His argument is that racial pride and solidarity allowed for key uprisings and breakthroughs in the dominant white culture, such as blacks integrating into professional sports.

The second historical narrative suggests that the rise of the black athlete during the Civil Rights era helped pave the way for racial tolerance and further integration. This ideology is based upon the endeavors of athletes such as (again) Robinson, who scholars believe was a pioneer in integrating American sports and more importantly, American culture. By playing alongside white men and attaining success in white-dominated sports, black athletes were able to slowly change the discourse surrounding racial stereotypes and the perceived racial hierarchy, which made it easier to move towards further integration and civil equality. Indeed much of the historiography surrounding this idea is based upon Robinson, as his integration into professional baseball was the first major social institution to be integrated, thus paving the way for future sports and other institutions (the integration of baseball preceded the integration of both public schools and the military). Jules Tygiel, author of arguably the most detailed biography on Jackie

Robinson’s playing career entitled Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and

His Legacy, published in 2008, claims that Robinson’s rise and success in professional baseball in the 1940s was the catalyst that led to not only the continued integration of baseball, but also of other sports and social institutions. Tygiel contends that “The integration of baseball represented both a symbol of imminent racial challenge and a direct agent of social change. Jackie Robinson’s campaign against the color line in 1946-

47 captured the imagination of millions of Americans who had previously ignored the nation’s racial dilemma. For civil rights advocates, the baseball experience offered a

6 model of peaceful transition through militant confrontation, economic pressure, and moral suasion . . . ”2

But regardless of whether these athletes were either a catalyst or a byproduct of the movement, the ways these men transcended the realm of athletics and sport and crossed over into the realm of social activism is often overlooked. Robinson became an avid social activist after his retirement from baseball, with the goal of moving the nation closer towards racial equality, yet we choose to remember him primarily as the African

American athlete who integrated professional baseball. Robinson was recognized and applauded for his physical achievements on the field, but like other black athletes during this era, he was still being discriminated against and treated as a second-class citizen off the field. It is this disconnect that inspired Robinson, and others such as Bill Russell,

Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos to use their voices to speak out on greater social issues. Yet when they did, they were more often than not met with criticism and backlash from white power structures, such as white media publications and government organizations. These groups represented some of the dominant ideologies of the American people, and it appeared as if they were reluctant to accept the political and intellectual sides of these accomplished athletes. This disconnect is in need of further examination.

In 1997, John Hoberman introduced a third historical narrative to the field, one that briefly addressed the aforementioned issue regarding the binary between black athleticism and intellectualism. In his book Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged

2 Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (Oxford, England: University of Oxford Press, 2008), 21.

Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race, Hoberman made the argument that mainstream sports have not provided opportunities for black citizens to challenge social and racial boundaries, but have only preserved racial attitudes and obstacles in modern times. He wrote, “While it is assumed that sport has made an important contribution to racial integration, this has been counterbalanced by the merger of the athlete, the gangster rapper, and the criminal into a single black male persona that the sports industry, the music industry, and the advertising industry have made into the predominant image of black masculinity in the United States and around the world.”3 The emphasis on the physical body and the success attained through athleticism discourages the pursuit of academic achievement, which has become more of a rarity among young black males.

What differed Hoberman’s ideas from the traditional historical narrative was the idea that sports do not offer an avenue of social rebellion, but rather they only uphold social tropes which emphasize the sacrifice of the black body for the benefit of white America, while discouraging intellectualism among young African Americans.

A decade later, author William C. Rhoden expanded upon this new historical narrative with his work Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. In it, Rhoden contended that present-day black athletes are just modern slaves who work for white-dominated power structures, i.e. mainstream white America.

Again the emphasis is placed on the exploitation of the black body, which has become the defining aspect of black identity. Young black athletes are employed by major corporations and institutions in order to generate wealth and power. The perpetuated idea

3 John Hoberman, Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), xviii.

8 is that athleticism and physicality will earn success, while simultaneously discouraging intellectualism or any form of dissent. And like Hoberman, Rhoden also endorsed the idea that sports only help to preserve racial stereotypes and social inequality in American culture. Sports do not offer an even playing field, but rather only foster delusions of racial equality. While some may find Hoberman’s and Rhoden’s arguments rather outlandish and extreme, there is something to be said about the fact that the number of black males attending college is increasing at a slower rate than the number of black males playing high school sports, and also the number of black males being incarcerated.4

In the early decades of twentieth-century America, the nation was defined by severe racial boundaries. African Americans faced crippling stereotypes rooted in perceived biological differences, and then strengthened by Jim Crow policies. In all aspects of life, black citizens in the United States faced harsh discrimination and inequality, and they were forced into second-class citizenship by a system of white supremacy.5 In 1896, the Supreme Court ruling of the case Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the constitutionality of state laws sanctioning segregation in social institutions, justified by the empty promises of a “separate but equal” nature. American society in this era was ultimately based upon a perceived social hierarchy, in which whites were superior to blacks. Because of this, black athletes in America faced similar racial obstacles and stereotypes. They were seen as inferior, stupid, and unworthy of competition with

4 William C. Rhoden, Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 1. 5 Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 (Jackson, Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2007), 10.

9 whites.6 As a result, many were prohibited from playing both professional and amateur sports alongside their white counterparts.

Yet, the arena of sport provided African Americans with something that many other social settings could not. For those that were given the opportunity to compete with or alongside whites, sports gave black athletes an avenue to challenge the perceived social hierarchy as well as the many racial stereotypes that pinned them as being inferior, second-class citizens. When Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers gave Jackie

Robinson the chance to compete in the all-white professional baseball league in 1947, he silenced his critics by winning the inaugural Most Valuable Player Award.7 White

America may have seen their black peers as inferior, but the arena of sport allowed them to prove that they were not. Thus, those like Robinson, Ali, and numerous other black athletes of the twentieth century were able to repeal many of the racial stereotypes surrounding African Americans through their successes in the arena of competition.8 In postwar America, Robinson’s blazing speed on the base paths, finesse with the glove, and pure skill with the bat forced many Americans to rethink their beliefs on race and the supposed inferiority of blacks. By succeeding and flourishing in the field where he was expected to fail, he all but turned the idea of a racial hierarchy on its head. During the

1950s and 1960s, at a crucial time of civil rights issues, Muhammad Ali’s raw power and confidence inspired millions of African Americans to reexamine their place as second- class citizens.

6 Lori Latrice Martin, ed., Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2014), 12. 7 Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 192. 8 Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, eds., Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Routledge, 2004), 3.

However, what truly made those like Robinson and Ali distinct from their predecessors was their effort to use their success and positions of national fame as a way to further the fight against racial inequality and discrimination in the US. Unsatisfied with their stature as mere physical competitors, and not as equal citizens, black athletes like

Robinson, Ali, Russell, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos used their social recognition as a platform to speak out on issues of racial equality and social injustice. But when they did, they were often met with significant resistance from the media and other white power structures. Mainstream America was willing to accept these men as athletes and entertainers, but unwilling to accept them as intellectuals, or as equal citizens with an equal voice. The result is an identifiable disconnect between their endeavors as physical competitors and their ambitions as social and political activists. What becomes evident is a thematic disparity between the way these African American men are seen and received as athletes, versus how they are seen and received as citizens.

Jack Johnson vs. Joe Louis: A Juxtaposition of Two Opposing Character Types

The struggle for civil rights and social equality of the black athlete during the

Civil Rights era is best defined by a contrast of two character types, that of the “docile negro,” and the “bad nigger.”9 The majority of Americans during this time preferred its black citizens to be obedient, non-questioning, and by all accounts, “good negroes.”

Persons of the black community were expected to adhere to the rules and regulations of the white man. On the other hand, those black persons that challenged the status quo were considered aggressive, rebellious, or “bad niggers.” This dialectic is exemplified by the first two African American boxing superstars of the early twentieth century, Jack Johnson

9 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 137.

11 and Joe Louis. Jack Johnson was a proud, flamboyant, and arrogant African American boxer that rose to prominence in the 1910s, a time of much hardship for African

Americans. As historian Gerald R. Gems described it, “The Progressive Era proved a misnomer for African Americans. Lynchings occurred on a regular basis. Jim Crow laws separated society and the United States Supreme Court affirmed racial segregation in the

Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896. Miscegenation laws prohibited interracial unions in many states. The Klu Klux Klan rose to power in the South, spread into northern states, and terrorized black families with violent retributions for any transgressions upon white authority . . . Black resistance to white dominance in the form of race riots were met with brutal and forceful subjugation.”10

When Johnson emerged in this volatile period of American history as a formidable heavyweight boxer of color, he forced whites to reevaluate their Social

Darwinian beliefs in white superiority and their ideas of white privilege.11 The sport of boxing was unique in that it allowed African Americans the opportunity to exhibit their physical prowess against their opponents, and more importantly against white opponents.

Racial stereotypes and the oppression of Jim Crow were cemented in the ideology that blacks were inferior to whites. White men thought it to be the natural order to reign supreme over blacks because they were the superior race, and that they could impose their will because they were both intellectually and biologically superior. But the boxing ring existed as an area where these assumptions could be challenged. Eldridge Cleaver, a political activist leader of the Black Panther Party said of boxing, “the boxing ring is the

10 Ibid., 59. 11 Ibid.

12 ultimate focus of masculinity in America, the two-fisted testing ground of manhood and the heavyweight champion, as a symbol, is the real Mr. America.”12 Traditionally, the sport of boxing had been segregated, as blacks were seen as unworthy of fighting white opponents and were restricted to fighting other black fighters. However, Jack Johnson was one of the first professional black boxers to not only fight white opponents, but also to attain success against them.13

The attitude of social Darwinist theorists was that blacks were not only mentally inferior, but also physically inferior to whites. Blacks were thought to be too lazy and too undisciplined to ever be taken seriously as athletes. When Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight-boxing champion in 1908, his victory created a serious crisis for these ideas. As Johnson continued to garner success and infamy in the early stages of his career, it became increasingly important for white America to find a white boxer that could defeat Johnson and restore racial order. When he defeated retired champion Jim

Jeffries in 1910, nicknamed “The Great White Hope” in hopes of restoring order to white supremacy and the racial hierarchy in boxing, it sent the nation into a social frenzy.

Throughout the United States, African Americans rose together in celebration. In

Chicago, sizeable fights broke out between blacks and whites who had listened to the report of the championship encounter over the radio. In other cities across the nation, whites violently retaliated, killing and lynching African Americans who reveled in the

12 Ibid., 71. 13 Up until the first decade of the twentieth century, black boxers were not allowed to compete against whites, and especially not for a championship title. In 1901, Joe Walcott became the first African American boxer to attain the World Boxing Champion title, doing so in the welterweight weight-class. Jack Johnson became the first World Boxing Champion in the heavyweight weight-class in 1908, which was more highly regarded in American and boxing culture.

13 symbolic reversal of the racial hierarchy.14 Johnson’s success was a blow to the social structure of America at the time. Many white Americans saw Jim Jeffries as the symbol of their race, one that would defeat the evil black Johnson and restore racial order.

Johnson’s victory was therefore a profound event at a critical point in American history, and whites could no longer claim physical and athletic superiority over their black counterparts.

Yet Johnson’s impact and infamy extended beyond the boxing ring. It was also his personality and character that challenged the traditions of racial hierarchy in America.

Not only was he upending the natural order by defeating his white opponents inside the ring, but he was defying the cultural expectations that white America had for its black citizens. Johnson was a proud, flamboyant, and outspoken black man in a society that expected its negro citizens to be subdued and submissive. He dressed in fancy clothes, drove expensive cars, and regularly spoke his mind. He reversed traditional, social, and economic roles by hiring white managers, chauffeurs, valets, and women who waited upon him and served his needs.15 Johnson’s success inside the ring, and his excesses outside of it represented they very thing that white America feared, that their “manifest destiny” of being the dominant race was a farce.

Johnson also represented a threat to the balance of masculinity in the eyes of white men in the US. The age-old stereotype of black men was that they were uncivilized, bestial, and hyper-masculine creatures. Black sexuality represented the rudimentary fear of white men, that their women would be either stolen or raped by black

14 Ibid., 65. 15 Ibid., 63.

14 males. By erecting a monopoly on professional sport and sports culture, white men were able to dominate the realm of masculinity and prevent this fear from coming to fruition.

Boxing, a hand-to-hand combat sport, existed as a raw display of one’s power and

“manliness.” When Johnson defeated his white opponents and became the heavyweight champion, he disrupted the balance of masculinity in the eyes of white men in America.

His reign atop the boxing world represented their inability to protect their women from

Johnson and other black males. As more black athletes began to integrate the sporting world further into the twentieth century, white men came to completely lose their control of masculinity in American culture.

Johnson was the antithesis of what a black man should be in the collective conscious of white America. Rather than conform to the wishes of his white peers, he challenged the status quo and refused to let the color of his skin define his capabilities.

For all intents and purposes, Jack Johnson was the first black superstar athlete in

America, and he was not well received by mainstream society. The African American community embraced him as an inspiration and a hero to the people, while white

America saw him as a rebellious “bad nigger.”

In the 1930s, two decades after the prominence and notoriety of Jack Johnson, a new African American boxer emerged as a superstar in the United States. Joe Louis dominated the boxing world during his prime, holding the World Heavyweight Champion title from 1937 to 1949, the longest reign at the time.16 Louis followed in the footsteps of

Johnson in that he became one of the first black superstars in America, but where

Johnson was despised by the majority of white Americans, Louis became arguably the

16 Ibid., 139.

15 first African American national hero. From the outset of his career, race dominated the public discourse about Louis. But instead of being rebellious, arrogant, and threatening, he was unobtrusive and controlled, more acceptable by white-standards. As author

Anthony O. Edmonds described in “Joe Louis, Boxing, and American Culture,” “The race issue was certainly uppermost in the minds of Louis’s management and trainers.

They knew how far the shadow of Jack Johnson spread. Johnson’s behavior inside and outside the ring in the early twentieth century had made it impossible for black heavyweights to fight for the championship, as boxing’s white establishment had effectively erected a color line.”17 Breaking through this barrier would be extraordinarily difficult, and it took a particular type of persona to do it. Louis would have to conduct himself with modesty and humility, both in and out of the ring. Whereas Johnson would verbally abuse his white opponents, much to the dismay of most white Americans, Louis was told “never to gloat over a fallen opponent.”18 But most importantly, he had to overcome the rudimentary fear in the minds of most white men, Johnson’s legacy of sexual association with white women. John Roxborough, Louis’s manager and mentor, told Louis to not even “have his picture taken along with a white woman,” much less associate with one.19 In order to succeed in the lily-white world of prizefighting, he would have to emulate a black persona that was easily digestible by the white community, which meant he would have to live and fight clean, at least by the rules of

17 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 136. While professional boxing was not officially segregated, many white Americans had become wary of the prospect of another black champion in the wake of Jack Johnson's highly unpopular reign atop the heavyweight division. A glass ceiling kept black boxers out of championship bouts, and there were few black heavyweight contenders at the time, though there were African Americans who fought for titles in other weight divisions, 18 Ibid. 19 Dave Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005), 56.

16 white America. White journalists would be responsible for molding the image of Joe

Louis for most Americans, and the issue of race was certainly at the forefront of their minds.20 But Louis was successful in earning acceptance and respect from both the media and the white community. After his defeat of German fighter Max Schmeling in 1938, and his brief service in the army during World War II, he had become almost completely whitewashed in a wave of American patriotism.21 After the war, white journalists rarely identified him as a negro, and the stereotyped references of him in the media declined.22

Louis succeeded in overcoming the stigma of Jack Johnson, and as a result the vast majority of white Americans embraced him.

Louis, with the urging of his trainers and management team, worked hard to fit into the “good Negro” character. Bruce Dudley, a well-known sportswriter of the 1930s said of Louis, “The colored boy is clean, fine and superb, modest and unassuming as a chauffeur or as the man who cuts and rakes the lawn once a week.”23 As Edmonds contended, “In sum, the white response to the Joe Louis persona so carefully crafted by his managers and trainer was largely positive. Louis was not a danger. In most ways he was a comforting confirmation that successful blacks need not be a threat to the structure of racial custom and etiquette. Blacks perhaps could be mobile, if, paradoxically, they also stayed in their place.”24 Despite the legacy and stigma left behind by Johnson, Louis

20 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 137. 21 Chris Mead, Joe Louis: Black Champion in White America (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2010), x. 22 Ibid., 214. 23 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 138. 24 Ibid.

17 proved that a successful black man could be accepted by white America so long as he respected and obeyed his white masters.

Yet while many Americans saw Louis as a “good negro,” a palpable African

American character that could assimilate into mainstream culture, many instead saw him as an Uncle Tom. As menacing and powerful as he was inside the boxing ring, Louis immediately shed that persona outside of it. He conformed to the way his white management team and trainers dictated his behavior in order to please white America, and for that, there were those that saw Louis as excessively subservient to the parties that ultimately oppressed him. As much good as he was doing for the African American community by excelling as a physical competitor through boxing, his Uncle Tom demeanor played into the hands of the dominant culture in the US and reinforced many of the unrealistic expectations the white community had for its black citizens. Joel

Dinerstein, author of “‘Uncle Tom is Dead!’: Wright, Himes, and Ellison Lay a Mask to

Rest,” reveals the utter disdain the black community had for the Uncle Tom character, and suggests that African American literature of the 1930s and 40s attempted to dismantle the social trope long before they denounced the demeaning figure in the postwar era.25 He explains, “Stowe's Uncle Tom perhaps retained purchase for older white Americans as a literary fantasy of African American passivity—the character had, after all, been transposed into minstrel, theatrical, and cinematic fantasy—but in the

African American vernacular, ‘Uncle Tom’ registered a survival practice of everyday life that required figurative literary murder in order to liberate both African American male

25 Joel Dinerstein, “’Uncle Tom is Dead!’: Wright, Himes, and Ellison Lay a Mask to Rest,” African American Review 43, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 83.

18 artistic agency and the right to individualized social protest.”26 Louis’s Uncle Tom persona was therefore seen by some as a detriment to the advancement of black people in

American society. While Johnson was perhaps overly controversial and crude, Louis took his mantle at the opposite end of the spectrum. He might have been accepted by the dominant cultures in the US, but he did so by sacrificing his black pride and identity.

The dichotomy between Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, and the manner in which they were received by white America is a telling sign of the social environment and consciousness of the majority of white American’s during the early part of the twentieth century. As African Americans began to slowly integrate various social institutions, in this case the sporting world and specifically professional boxing, it became apparent that only a particular black character would be accepted and embraced by the white community. Johnson attained his notoriety and contempt from white America because he refused to adhere to the rules and stipulations that determined how a black person should act. He was boastful, outspoken, and above all else, independent. Johnson carried himself in such a manner that he did not need the white man, he was his own person. This attitude is what led to his bad reception and reputation with white media and the general public.

On the other hand, Louis’s soft-spoken and docile nature allowed him to be assimilated into the dominant culture of America.27 Louis was accepted by white Americans because he neither threatened nor challenged the status quo or racial hierarchy that white power structures had erected. By examining the profiles and careers of these polarizing black boxers, it becomes apparent that only one character type would be tolerated and

26 Ibid. 27 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 138.

19 embraced by white America. The other character type, those like Jack Johnson, would be met with resistance and backlash from the dominant cultures that were unwilling to change or alter their particular racial system.

The subjects of this study, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell,

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, were athletes of the Civil Rights era that more closely emulated Jack Johnson, the “bad nigger” character type. They were not passive or submissive, the docile “good negroes” that the majority of white Americans preferred from black people. These men were intelligent, calculated, and demanded their natural rights as human beings. They challenged the status quo and used their fame and social recognition garnered through sports as a rostrum to speak out on greater social issues. As physical competitors, they were unsatisfied with social acceptance and public appraise that was limited to the playing field, while the rest of the black community was still facing racial discrimination and social inequality across the nation. These men refused to adhere to the social systems and racial hierarchies that had crippled their people for centuries. They were pioneers in that they used their social status as a platform to speak out on issues of intolerance and civil equality. Yet, when they transcended the playing field into the realm of social politics, they received significant backlash from the general public, as if they were unable to shed their characterization as apolitical athletes. Scholars like to celebrate these men as pioneers that paved the way for racial equality in America, but there existed a deeper struggle for social acceptance and approval outside the spectacle of sports. This thesis will attempt to identify the point in which these celebrated athletes like Robinson, Ali, and Russell lost their support from mainstream America, and became targets for resistance and criticism.

CHAPTER 2

JACKIE ROBINSON, A RACIAL PIONEER

“I believe both white and black people in America waste too much time worrying about liking each other or being liked. I’ll be very honest with you. If you want to like me, that’s fine. But I can survive if you don’t like me. Just give me my due and respect as a human personality, concede to me equality of opportunity and I’ll do the rest.”—Jackie

Robinson

On April 15, 1947, 32,000 people packed into a crowded Ebbets Field, and countless more watched and listened anxiously over radios and television sets. On that day, Jackie Robinson made his major league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, effectively ending the color barrier that had plagued professional baseball for nearly sixty years. It was truly a historic day not only for the game, but for the entire American nation. His integration into professional baseball preceded the integration of public schools, of the military, and numerous other social institutions. It had occurred at a time in American history when the nation was plagued by crippling racism, Jim Crow laws, and severe social and economic inequality. Robinson’s participation on that April day in 1947 and subsequent success in the sport put the nation’s problem of racial inequality at the forefront, and it forced many Americans to rethink their previous assumptions on a perceived “social hierarchy.”

Jackie Robinson’s integration into professional baseball and continual success was indeed monumental and historic not only for African Americans and the Civil Rights

Movement, but also for the American nation as a whole. However, what is less known about Robinson is what came after his athletic career, his actions off the field as a social rights activist. Robinson is widely known for being a revolutionary player in the game of baseball, the first to conquer the color barrier in professional sports. And yet his endeavors after his retirement from the game can be seen as equally as revolutionary, as he was the first nationally-recognized athlete to advocate for racial equality outside of the arena of sport. Toward the end of his career and especially after his retirement, Jackie

Robinson became a staunch political activist. He joined numerous political groups such as the NAACP, organized public demonstrations, campaigned for presidential candidates, wrote thought-provoking newspaper columns, and sent dozens of letters to key political figures in effort to gain equality for his fellow black Americans. This aspect is what was truly revolutionary about Jackie Robinson. Robinson’s endeavors as a civil rights activist were just as, if not more important as his accomplishments in integrating baseball. He was the first African American athlete in the twentieth century to use his national fame gained through sports as a rostrum to speak out against the social injustices that still plagued American society. By continuing his crusade against racism and discrimination outside of his sport, Robinson became one of the first nationally recognized figures in the early civil rights movement. Furthermore, by transcending the world of sports into the realm of social activism, he set the precedent for future athletes to use their own popularity to speak out against social injustices. In the years that followed Robinson’s fight for racial equality off the diamond, there began an uprising of other black athletes

22 using their own social relevance and popularity to speak and act out against injustice at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. But as we see, a disconnect develops between these athletes’ ambitions as social activists and the reality in which they were received by the greater public.

Jackie Robinson was not always the fiery and outspoken activist that he came to be after his retirement. When Robinson began his career in the white-dominated professional baseball, he did so under the restriction of some unwritten rules. Branch

Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers during the 1940s and the man responsible for Robinson’s shot in the big leagues, had signed Robinson under the agreement that he would be stoic and reserved, one that would follow in the footsteps of

Joe Louis. Rickey believed that in order for the “noble experiment” to work, Robinson would have to succeed on the field, while also being an exemplary individual off the field.28 As was the case with Louis in the boxing world of the 1930s, Branch Rickey knew that only a particular kind of black man would be accepted by white America. If

Robinson were to lash out or retaliate against those who attacked him, then he would only be succumbing to ideas that blacks were temperamental, violent, and that they did not belong in professional sport. For the first year of his career, Robinson had to quietly tolerate the verbal and physical discrimination that followed him both on and off the field. He reluctantly played into the “good negro” model emulated by Joe Louis a decade earlier. Both he and Branch Rickey knew that in order for the experiment to work,

Robinson would have to become a digestible character for the greater public.

28 Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 58.

Robinson got his first taste of civil rights activism in 1949, when he was asked by the House Committee of Un-American Activities to testify against African American entertainer Paul Robeson. In addition to being a successful actor and singer, Robeson was also an accomplished athlete. He was an all-American football player at Rutgers in 1917 and 1918, and won twelve varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track and field. After college, he played professional football on the first championship team of what today is the National Football League. He earned a law degree at Columbia

University, before eventually becoming a Shakespearean actor and a world-renowned singer.29 A widely popular African American figure like Robinson, Robeson had repeatedly spoken out against racial inequality in the US.30 Robeson had spent extended periods of time in Europe and England in the 1920s and 1930s. In these foreign nations, and especially in Moscow, he found less racial hatred and greater personal freedom than he had known in America. He was greatly impressed with the Russian people and what he considered their lack of racial prejudice.31 From that point on, Robeson continued his praise of the Soviet Union while also speaking out against racism and discrimination in

America.

Whereas Jackie Robinson had chosen to remain silent on social issues of race and equality for most of his playing career, Paul Robeson took the opposite approach, electing to publicly speak out against these injustices. In a particular speech in Paris,

France, at the outset of the Cold War, he claimed that African Americans should never

29 Ronald A. Smith, “The Paul Robeson—Jackie Robinson Saga and a Political Collision,” Journal of Sport History 6, no. 2 (Summer 1979): 9. 30 Ibid., 6. 31 Ibid., 10.

24 take up arms against the Soviet Union, as they still faced tyranny and oppression in their very own country.32 He claimed, “It is unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country [the

USSR] which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind.”33

Robeson, a once well-liked and celebrated actor in the eyes of the American public, was now seen by the government as a potential threat to US democracy. Here was a black man stirring the pot, speaking out on social issues and calling attention to the nation’s domestic policy. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, where both democracy and communism were vying to be the dominant ideology of the post-war era, Robeson’s comments were seen as a betrayal of the American way. But seeing it as an opportunity to undermine Robeson, HUAC extended an invitation to Jackie Robinson, another prominent black man (or entertainer) in American society, to testify against him. HUAC had been established principally to investigate fascist and communist activities, in the defense of democracy.34 Robinson did not see Robeson as a threat to democracy, but as simply bringing to attention some of the racial injustices that plagued American society.

Although he disagreed with Robeson’s approach, he thought that they were ultimately on the same side.35

Yet Robinson reluctantly accepted the invitation. Still struggling to earn respect as a black man in professional baseball, those close to him assured that appearing before

32 Jackie Robinson, I Never Had it Made (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 82. 33 Thomas W. Zeiler, ed., Jackie Robinson and Race in America: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford, 2014), 112. 34 Smith, “The Paul Robeson—Jackie Robinson Saga,” 17. 35 Robinson, I Never Had it Made, 82.

Congress was an honor, and another opportunity to display his good character.36

Furthermore, he feared by declining HUAC’s request, he would sacrifice his integrity in the eyes of the (white) American people, which would spoil his quest to further the integration of professional sports and the advancement of the civil rights movement.37

Although the committee expected him to thwart Robeson, Robinson took advantage of the spotlight to make it known that there certainly were greater social issues that needed to be addressed. Robeson might have been a communist sympathizer, but he was not a liar. Robinson declared,

I don’t pretend to be any expert on communism or any other kind of political ‘ism’ . . . But you can put me down as an expert on being a colored American, with thirty years of experience at it. And just like any other colored person with sense enough to look around him and understand what he sees, I know that life in these United States can be mighty tough for people who are a little different from the majority—in their skin color, . . . I’m not fooled because I’ve had a chance open to very few Negro Americans. It’s true that I’ve been the laboratory specimen in a great change in organized baseball. I’m proud that I’ve made good on my assignment to the point where other colored players will find it easier to enter the game and go to the top. But I’m very well aware that even this limited job isn’t finished yet . . . 38

Integrating the game of baseball was an important step, but he knew there was a far greater need for the integration of American society. These words from the first part of his statement show his reluctance to oppose Robeson in the entirety, and to pretend that race relations in the US were not an issue. His testimony continued,

The white public should start toward real understanding by appreciating that every single Negro who is worth his salt is going to resent any kind of slurs and discrimination because of his race, and he’s going to use every bit of intelligence, such as he has, to stop it. This has got absolutely nothing to do with

36 Ibid., 84. 37 Zirin, What’s My Name Fool?, 46. 38 Jackie Robinson, Statement to the House of Un-American Activities Committee, July 19, 1949. In Jackie Robinson and Race in America: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Thomas W. Zeiler (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014), 111.

what Communists may or may not be trying to do . . . And one other thing the American public ought to understand, if we are to make progress in this matter, is the fact that because it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality, and lynching, when it happens, doesn’t change the truth of his charges. Just because Communists kick up a big fuss over racial discrimination when it suits their purposes, a lot of people try to pretend that the whole issue is a creation of Communist imagination. But they are not fooling anyone with this kind of pretense, and talk about ‘Communists stirring up Negroes to protest’ only makes present misunderstanding worse than ever. Negroes were stirred up long before there was a Communist party, and they’ll stay stirred up long after the party has disappeared—unless Jim Crow has disappeared by then as well.39

Knowing that he was speaking in front of a large audience of American citizens

(the event was widely covered), Robinson urged the people not to think of racial inequality as simply a Communist issue. Racism and discrimination, he argued, still existed in the absence of the Cold War politics. He continued,

What I’m trying to get across is that the American public is off on the wrong foot when it begins to think of radicalism in terms of any special minority group. It is thinking of this sort that gets people scared because one Negro, speaking to a Communist group in Paris, threatens an organized boycott by fifteen million members of his race . . . But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop fighting race discrimination in this country until we’ve got it licked. It means that we’re going to fight it all the harder because our stake in the future is so big. We can win our fight without the Communists and we don’t want their help.40

Ultimately, Robinson went on to state that Robeson’s comments that African

Americans would refuse to fight in any war against Russia, because of their love for

Russia, were “silly.”41 Despite the majority of his testimony speaking to issues of civil rights and racial inequality in the US, HUAC and the major newspaper publishers emphasized the anti-Robeson comments of Robinson while giving little-to-no acknowledgement of the pro-civil rights statements. In his autobiography, Robinson too

39 Ibid., 114. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 114.

27 claims that his words were taken out of context, and that he really believed Robeson was only trying to help his people.42 Nevertheless, Robinson’s testimony on that day led to the downfall and eventual exile of Robeson. His comments were manipulated and skewed by the major media publications to paint a negative picture of Robeson and convict him as being a communist. The same power structures that had kept Robinson out of baseball and discriminated against him, had now exploited his cultural and social relevance to undermine and outcast another black entertainer in American culture. White America had proven it was willing to embrace Robeson as an actor and entertainer in American society, but under the shadow of Cold War politics, it refused to recognize him as a political activist and intellectual. When he transcended his role as an entertainer into the realm of social activism, he was met by significant resistance from white America. This is the same disconnect that troubled many of the black athletes (who were also entertainers) of the Civil Rights era.

It can be argued that this is the only time in Robinson’s political career that his words had any true weight to them, or any genuine consequence. His testimony against

Robeson echoed the agenda of HUAC, a major white power structure in America at the time. They used Robinson’s cultural identity and impact as leverage for accomplishing their own goals. Sure this was a “victory” for Robinson, but at the hands of white

America. As we will see, never again would he achieve the same level of social impact has he did when he was used as a pawn for the House of Un-American Activities. When

Robinson retired from baseball and began to advocate for the advancement of civil rights, his words and efforts would not carry the same weight.

42 Robinson, I Never Had it Made, 86.

Robinson as a Civil Rights Advocate

Despite his testimony for HUAC in front of Congress, Robinson limited his challenge to racial injustices through baseball for the majority of his playing career. As a result, his work as a civil rights activist really began after his retirement. When Robinson walked away from the game in 1956, his impact was evident. Of the sixteen teams in professional baseball, only three remained to be integrated.43 Stars like Satchel Paige and

Roy Campanella had burst onto the scene, making immediate impacts on the sport as well as American culture. Subsequently, various other professional sports had taken steps towards integration as well, including football and basketball. Yet Robinson knew that his fight for racial equality was far from over. He had instigated a seismic shift in sports, but the legal system had caused an even bigger shift in American society.44 At the time of his retirement, the nation was still reeling from Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the Little Rock Nine incident was just on the horizon.

Soon after his retirement, Robinson joined the board of directors for the NAACP.

He quickly became their most requested speaker nationwide, ahead even of Martin

Luther King Jr. at the time. He would conclude his speeches by saying, “If I had to choose between baseball’s Hall of Fame and first-class citizenship I would say first-class citizenship to all of my people.”45 He also became the first black vice president of a major corporation, Chock Full o’Nuts Coffee Company. By joining the company,

Robinson was setting an example and encouraging other African Americans to pursue

43 Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 336. 44 Zieler, Jackie Robinson and Race in America, 32. 45 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 49.

29 careers in business.46 His efforts as a businessman and as a supporter for the NAACP coincides with what historians August Meier and John Bracey refer to as a “revolution in expectations” among African Americans at the time. A new sense of urgency to dismantle racial barriers emerged, resulting in an outpouring of nonviolent action that by the early 1960s, came to characterize the civil rights movement.47

Apart from his various political and economic endeavors during his post- retirement years, Jackie Robinson was also responsible for writing dozens of letters to various politicians and persons of interest with the hopes of advancing the movement towards civil equality. Robinson’s approach was to use his cultural relevance and fame as a connection to various political subjects in power, such as presidents, vice-presidents, etc. By using his popularity to gain access to these people, Robinson was then able to offer his strong opinions on important issues. In many of the letters, he urges various persons in positions of power to either continue or strengthen their policies on civil rights matters. Robinson believed that progress could be made through peaceful cooperation, renewed legislation, and voting power.48

In one such letter, in which Robinson wrote to President Eisenhower on May

12th, 1958, Robinson voiced his displeasure with the President over specific comments he made in his address to the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders in Washington D.C.

Eisenhower had urged African Americans to exercise patience on civil rights issues.

Robinson had been generally pleased with Eisenhower’s support against racial segregation and inequality, but being in the audience that day, he was greatly

46 Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 209. 47 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 176. 48 Jackie Robinson, I Never Had it Made, 180.

30 disappointed to hear the President’s comments. The next day he wrote a letter to

Eisenhower to voice his disagreement:

My dear Mr. President: I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience. On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying, “Oh no! Not again.” I respectfully remind you, sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years. 17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago. As chief executive of our nation, I respectfully suggest that you unwittingly crush the spirit of freedom in Negroes by constantly urging forbearance and give hope to those pro-segregation leaders like Governor Faubus who would take from us even those freedoms we now enjoy.49

This letter and the numerous others like this are evidence to the fact that Robinson was a revolutionary in that he was the first widely-known sports figure in America to use his cultural popularity as a rostrum to speak out on greater social issues.

But perhaps his most significant contributions came when he began writing weekly newspaper columns that were available to larger audiences. In April of 1959, he was given a golden opportunity by New York Post editor James Wechsler. Robinson was now an African American hero and national icon, and Wechsler believed that having him in his pages could expand readership, especially among black citizens.50 Robinson was thus given a weekly column in the New York Post, where he was free to write on any topic of his choosing. Indeed the subjects of his columns varied greatly, from baseball to golf, to marriage and fatherhood. But Robinson also recognized the platform that had

49 Jackie Robinson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, May 13, 1958, in First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson, edited by Michael G. Long (New York: Times Books, 2007), 56. 50 Michael G. Long, ed., Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2013), xxiii.

31 been given to him to make his voice heard. Having a column in the nationally syndicated newspaper meant that he could broadcast a greater message, and further his goal of gaining civil equality for African Americans. On the whole, his column lived up to this aspiration. It struck a balance between sports and other subjects, but adhered to the greater cause by keeping racism and civil rights at the fore. Michael G. Long, the editor of Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball, a compilation of

Robinson’s newspaper columns from both the New York Post and New York Amsterdam

News said of Robinson as a writer, “The columns of Jackie Robinson were provocative in a way that his private letters to civil rights leaders and politicians were not. Like his private letters, his columns were (and still are) strikingly open, honest, and revealing, but unlike the letters, his columns were also written for the masses—everyday citizens wondering what in the world their baseball hero had to say about newsworthy issues and events . . . Robinson wrote to prod and provoke, inflame and infuriate, and sway and persuade . . . Indeed, as Robinson played to win, he also strove to win the arguments of his day.”51

In his first column that he wrote for the Post on April 28, 1959 Robinson stayed true to his cause, and conveyed his desire to use his unique position as a culturally recognized black sports-star to speak out on greater social issues.

I’ve always tried to give as honest and sincere an opinion as I could. Unfortunately, some people don’t always appreciate this. Still, for better or worse. I’ve always thought it more important to take an intelligent and forthright stand on worthwhile questions than to worry about what some people might think. I’ve had perhaps more than my share of the good things of life. I’m thankful for this, but it doesn’t for one moment mean that I don’t share and identify with the very real problems of others. It would be easier, perhaps, just to go ahead and enjoy life and take no interest in politics, or juvenile delinquency, or

51 Ibid., xxv.

race relations, or world affairs. In fact, I’ve sometimes been told: ‘Jack if only you’d kept your mouth shut, you’d have won even more honors than you have!’ Well, I think honors are fine. But if having any honor ever means being obligated to giving up self-respect, you can be assured I know it’s not worth it. I firmly believe that because I have been so fortunate it is my duty to speak up where and when I can . . . And, too, as a Negro, I could hardly ignore this rare opportunity for one of us to speak to so wide an audience concerning just what we feel and think. That this person happens to be me isn’t important. The fact that it is happening is the thing.52

Robinson alludes to the greater social issues that he believes to be important, specifically civil rights, and his desire to further the cause. But more importantly, he believes it to be his duty to “speak up where and when I can.”53 This aspect is what was truly revolutionary about Robinson, and made him a pioneer in the shared space between sports and politics. He believed that the social popularity given to him by his success through professional sport should be used as a rostrum to speak out against greater social issues. The column for the New York Post allowed Jackie’s voice to be heard, and as a result he chose to bring attention to crucial topics.

The following year, on March 25, 1960, Robinson wrote a column in defense of the many student sit-ins occurring in the south and throughout the nation as a whole.

Several days earlier, former President Harry S. Truman had reacted negatively to the sit- ins. In a New York Times article, he was quoted saying, “If anybody came to my store and tried to stop business, I’d throw him out. The Negro should behave himself and show he’s a good citizen. Commonsense and goodwill can solve this whole thing.”54

52 Jackie Robinson, “Jackie Robinson,” New York Post, April 28, 1959, in Beyond Home Plate, ed. by Michael G. Long, xxiv. 53 Ibid. 54 Harry S. Truman, “Truman Says He’d Oust Disrupters in His Shop,” New York Times, March 20, 1960.

Disappointed by Truman’s short-sightedness, Robinson responded by rejecting Truman’s claims, and defending the sit-inners for taking action. His column read,

If Truman really means that he would “throw out” any of the quiet, orderly, peaceful students for merely asking to be served at a public lunch counter, then I suggest he open an establishment and prepare to begin at once. It is not the students who are ‘stopping business’ in these stores. The managements themselves have closed their counters, rather than choose to sell Negroes sandwiches as well as toothpaste. In point of fact, Negroes in the South do not now have the opportunity of ‘showing’ they are good citizens—as if any American should be required to prove the point to begin with to receive his ‘inalienable rights.’ Barred from the basic right of a citizen—the vote—and hemmed in by restrictions on opportunities for education, jobs, housing, culture and every other activity, it is little short of amazing that Negroes have ‘behaved themselves’ as well as they have. It is also ironic that Truman set up no such requirement before sending his ‘greetings’ indiscriminately to millions of Negro Americans to fight and die for their country in World War II and Korea.55

Robinson was well aware of the scope of his audience, and that his words would be taken seriously by those who read him. Therefore, he knew it was his duty to use his position to defend those that could not defend themselves. The columns that he wrote for the New York Post were provocative in nature, an attempt to disrupt the status quo and bring attention to the injustices that plagued American society. Like his playing days,

Robinson did not care about hurting feelings or becoming unpopular, and he was not afraid to make enemies, so long as he was staying true to his cause. Unfortunately however, there were those who did not agree with and support Robinson as a columnist for the New York Post. His columns regarding racism and civil rights issues were still widely controversial and unpopular, given the time. As such, Robinson received much

55 Jackie Robinson, “Jackie Robinson,” New York Post, March 25, 1960, in Beyond Home Plate, 68.

34 criticism and backlash for many of the columns he published during his time writing for the New York newspaper.56

In October of that year, Robinson was reminded of his status as a black man in

America when he came face to face with the presence of Jim Crow enforced by armed white police officers in the South. Arriving at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, for an NAACP event, he discovered that several of his black peers who were awaiting him had been forced out of the main or “white” waiting room by authorities.57 Outraged by the blatant racial discrimination, Robinson, along with a couple of his colleagues, entered the waiting room. Suddenly, “a disheveled unshaven man in a jacket approached us. He was wearing a gun and told us either to move on or be moved.”58 After Robinson and his company refused to move, the airport manager ordered the three men out of the room. When they again refused, the manager summoned a uniformed police officer, ordering him to arrest Robinson and the other two men if they did not leave the waiting room.59 Clearly, there were still those that defined Jackie Robinson by the color of his skin, and saw him as a second-class citizen.

Robinson was again reminded of his constant struggle with white power structures in America when on November 4th, 1960, only a year and a half after becoming a columnist for the New York Post, editor James Weschler fired him. Weschler gave various reasons for his decision to fire Robinson, such as his continuous and

56 Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 353. 57 Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 342. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid.

35 unrelenting support for Presidential Nominee Richard Nixon.60 But Robinson knew that it was for personal reasons, and that his columns were too sobering for the audience it was reaching. He also saw hints of racial discrimination in the decision, believing that the paper had become “uncomfortable” over the opinions he expressed, especially as a black man advocating for civil rights and racial equality. Two years later, Robinson was hired again as a columnist, this time for the New York Amsterdam News, a newspaper geared towards the black community of New York City. In his first column, published on

January 6, 1962, he publicly criticized Wechsler and the others that had been responsible for his firing. Clearly he still possessed strong feelings of resentment over the issue. The column read:

Not too long before I was let go, I had been a luncheon guest of both the publisher and the editor. We discussed the Jackie Robinson column and both Mrs. Schiff and Mr. Wechsler told me how pleased they were with the column and indicated that it was very well received by the public. No one will ever convince me that the Post acted in an honest manner. I believe the simple truth is that they became somewhat alarmed when they realized that I really meant to write what I believed. There is a peculiar parallel between some of our great Northern “liberals” and some of our outstanding Southern liberals. Some of the people in both classes share the deep-seated convictions that only their convictions can possibly be the right ones. They both inevitably say the same thing: “We know the Negro and what is best for him.”61

Jackie Robinson’s integration into professional baseball in 1947 was a monumental step for race relations in the United States. His pioneering effort to break the game’s color barrier coincided with what historian Manning Marable describes as

60 Ibid., 352; Although the Republican Presidential nominee, Robinson supported Richards Nixon over John F. Kennedy because Nixon had been an advocate for civil rights issues during his time as Vice President and also as the Presiding Officer of the Senate. James Weschler disliked Robinson’s avid support of Nixon because he did not want his opinions to reflect the overall political stance of the New York Post. 61 Jackie Robinson, New York Amsterdam News, January 6, 1962, in Beyond Home Plate, xxviii. Robinson’s column for NYAN was first titled “Jackie Robinson Says,” but was eventually changed to “Home Plate.”

African Americans making “decisive cracks in the citadel of white supremacy.”62

Scholars and historians like to celebrate Robinson as a pioneer for race relations in

American society, an important figure in the advancement of racial equality in our nation.

And indeed his athletic endeavors were immensely significant in the quest for civil rights.

However, what is often overlooked is Robinson’s integration of the shared space between sports, culture, and politics. He was a pioneer in that he was the first culturally relevant athlete to use his social status as a platform to transition into the realm of social politics, and speak out on issues of race and civil equality. The resistance and struggle he faced when he made this transition is a strong indicator of the cultural landscape of America in the postwar era. As an athlete, Robinson was widely celebrated and endeared, but as a black man living in the US, he did not always receive the same level of status. As we will come to see, this same disconnect stays true with several other notable black athletes that emerge during the Civil Rights era. One such man that fits this mold is arguably the most iconic black athlete of the twentieth century, a fiery and outspoken boxer named

Muhammad Ali.

62 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 176.

CHAPTER 3

MUHAMMAD ALI, A SYMBOL OF BLACK RESISTANCE

“I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin’ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.”—Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is by far and away the most polarizing and significant African

American athlete of the 1960s and 1970s, the height of the Civil Rights era. Never has an athlete been more reviled by the mainstream press, more persecuted by the US government, or more defiantly beloved throughout the world.63 Inside the boxing ring he was nearly unstoppable, and outside the ring he became a symbol of resistance to those who faced oppression and inequality. Ali epitomized the natural right of a person to stand up for what he or she believes in, even in the face of tyranny. News anchor Bryant

Gumbel, who grew up watching Ali’s heroics in and out of the ring, said of Ali, “One of the reasons the civil rights movement went forward was that Black people were able to overcome their fear. And I honestly believe that for many Black Americans, that came from watching Muhammad Ali. He simply refused to be afraid. And being that way, he gave other people courage.”64

After capturing the gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Ali, then known as

Cassius Clay, was well on his way to becoming the next Joe Louis—an all-American

63 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 53. 64 Ibid, 63.

38 hero.65 Despite a reputation for unlimited braggadocio that earned him the nickname the

Louisville Lip, Clay remained a non-threatening, apolitical, entertaining sports figure.

After his Olympic victory, Clay returned to his hometown in Louisville, Kentucky, proud to be an American. A regular poet, he recited the first of his many poems, expressing his loyalty to the United States:

To make America the greatest is my goal, So I beat the Russian, I beat the Pole, And for the USA won the Medal of Gold. Italians said, “You’re greater than the Cassius of Old.” We like your name, we like your game, So make Rome your home if you will. I said I appreciate your kind hospitality, But the USA is my country still, ‘Cause they waiting to welcome me in Louisville.66

However, when Clay returned to the US, he was quickly reminded of his status as a black man in American society. Despite the Olympic gold medal around his neck, he was dirt poor. He owned one shirt, two pairs of pants, and shoes with holes in them.

Although he had shown himself to be the best boxer in the world in his weight-class,

Clay could not even afford his own boxing gear.67 His low-point came when a restaurant in his hometown of Louisville denied him service.68 Despite proving his superiority in the boxing ring, American society continued to remind Clay of his supposed inferiority outside the ring. Even with an Olympic gold medal won for his country, he was still a

65 I will be referring to Muhammad Ali as his birth name, Cassius Clay, for the first part of this chapter for anachronistic reasons. Once I have addressed the period where he changed his name, I will return to calling him Muhammad Ali. 66 Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 29. 67 Muhammad Ali, The Greatest: My Own Story, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: Graymalkin Media, 1975), 55. 68 David Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New York: The New Press, 2008), 135.

39 black man, and that mattered more in the eyes of his white peers. It was here that Clay began his transformation into the boisterous and unapologetic figure better known as

Muhammad Ali.

By 1963, he was making the transition from All-American hero to radical and rebellious athlete. He began to make bold proclamations about himself, often bragging: “I am the greatest” and “I’m so pretty!” These powerful statements could be seen as precursors to the black pride “We are the Greatest” and “Say it Loud” campaigns and the

“Black is Beautiful” movement.69 The black community was already beginning to embrace Clay as a symbol of black pride and power. Ebony magazine proclaimed,

“Cassius Marcellus Clay—and this fact has evaded the sports writing fraternity—is a blast furnace of racial pride. His is a pride that would never mask itself with skin lighteners and processed hair, a pride scorched with memories of a million little burns.”70

At only the age of twenty-one, Clay was becoming an embodiment of black power and resistance for the African American community in the US.

To the mainstream media, Clay was an athlete whose arrogant demeanor was nothing more than entertainment, confining his identity within boundaries created by the white establishment. He was arrogant and proud, but he remained a caricature used to entertain the white masses. Even as the battle for civil rights became a national issue,

Clay seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis.

They were fighters against racism in America, but only within the confines of sport. Their

69 Ibid., 139. The Black Nationalist Movement adopted the slogans “We are the greatest” and “Black is beautiful” shortly after Ali publicly boasted about being the greatest boxer, and also of being pretty. 70 Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 81.

40 successes inside the boxing ring showed their physical capabilities as black men, but they still adhered to their white management teams and the other white power structures of society. They were soldiers of democracy and progress because they did not challenge the establishment. Instead, they longed to belong to the establishment. But Clay was different, and by 1964, he took a more radical turn, putting the boxing ring at the center of the political and cultural debate on equality and identity.

Clay used boxing to gain recognition and visibility in American society. On

February 25th, 1964, Clay defeated Sonny Liston, the “unbeatable” black fighter with ties to organized crime to become the heavyweight champion of world. At the time, Clay was a brash, confident 22-year old whose arrogance began to turn-off white sports writers.

According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, the fight between Clay and

Liston was “the most popular fight since Hitler and Stalin—180 million Americans rooting for a double knockout.”71 Many sportswriters despised Liston’s criminality and

Ali’s arrogance, but viewed them as non-threatening, apolitical figures. Liston’s felonies record and connections to the Mafia delegitimized his role in any civil rights campaigns.

On the other hand, Clay did not pose a threat because everyone assumed he would lose to

Liston and remain an invisible member of society.

Immediately following his victory over Liston, Clay began to transform the political landscape surrounding the Black Power Movement in America. On February 26, a reporter asked Clay if he was part of the Black Muslims. He responded, “I believe in

Allah and in peace. I don’t try to move into white neighborhoods. I don’t want to marry a

71 David Remnick, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 64.

41 white woman. I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”72 With one powerful response, Clay not only challenged the establishment, he also rejected integration as a solution to social injustice. This one statement signified a monumental shift in the ideology and (what he represented) of Cassius Clay. He was not asking to belong—he was supporting a Black

Nationalist movement, and preaching black pride and superiority. The following morning at a press conference, he made an even more commanding declaration:

I ain’t no Christian. I can’t be, when I see all the colored people fighting for forced integration get blowed up. They get hit by stones and chewed by dogs, and they blow up a Negro church and don’t find the killers. I’m the heavyweight champion, but right now there are some neighborhoods I can’t move into. I don’t believe in forced integration. I know where I belong. I’m not going to force myself into anybody’s house. I like my own people. They can live together without infringing on each other. You can’t condemn a man for wanting peace. If you do, you condemn peace itself.73

Clay’s statements were an indictment of America, rejecting Christianity and demanding radical change.

After establishing himself as the greatest boxer in the world, Clay quickly became the most polarizing figure in sports. Many of the older sports writers were more comfortable dealing with the mob figures surrounding Liston than with the Nation of

Islam surrounding Clay. Expressing black pride and black power was more threatening than having ties to organized crime. Reporters claimed this was “the worst thing that ever happened to boxing,” while others were more extreme. “This might be the worst thing that ever happened to the youth of America, which needs a proper role model,” one

72 Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 82. 73 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 62.

42 wrote.74 Seemingly overnight, Clay changed the role of the black athlete in American culture. He challenged the misconception that “the heavyweight champion, usually black, always poor, being a safe role model for the underclass. The heavyweight champion was a way for the white establishment to say to black America, ‘You should channel your rage and energy into going out and being someone who fights to entertain us within very specific carefully bounded areas.’”75 Clay destroyed these bounded areas with his vocal acceptance of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X’s inspired Black Nationalism.

Through careful media manipulation, Clay refused to play the “good negro” role by taking control of his identity, image and persona. Three years before the Liston fight,

Clay would sneak into Nation of Islam meetings through the back door. He knew that if someone leaked his participation to the media he would not be able to fight for the heavyweight title.76 He understood the importance of winning the title, which would put him on display on a national stage. This new stage would give him the platform to infuse the black community with both pride and power. According to New York Times writer

Robert Lipsyte, “the way Clay had played the press from the beginning was extraordinary. He’d made us all accomplices in his promotions with total self-awareness of what he was doing and done it better than anyone before or since.”77

On March 6th, Clay had another announcement—he would be changing his name to Muhammad Ali. With this decision, Ali was making a complete break from mainstream America. “Changing my name was one of the most important things that

74 Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 83. 75 Ibid., 84. 76 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 269. 77 Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 83. See also Free to be Muhammad Ali by Robert Lipsyte.

43 happened to me in my life. It freed me from the identity given to my family by slave masters,” he stated.78 The sports community and the national media were shocked. Jimmy

Cannon of the New York Post stated, “The fight racket, since its rotten beginnings, has been the red-light district of sports. But this is the first time it has been turned into an instrument of mass hate. Clay is using it as a weapon of wickedness in an attack on the spirit.” While Abe Greene, Commissioner of the World Boxing Association, proclaimed,

“Clay should be given the choice of being the fighter who won the title or the fanatic leader of an extraneous force which has no place in the sports arena.”79

Criticized for mixing politics and sports, Ali refused to be a one-dimensional caricature following the rules set forth by previous generations. His response to the backlash following his joining of the Nation of Islam and his name change was, “People always tell me what a good example I could set for my people if I wasn’t a Muslim,” he proclaimed. “I’ve heard over and over, how come I couldn’t be like Joe Louis and Sugar

Ray. Well, they’re gone now, and the black man’s condition is just the same isn’t it?

We’re still catching hell.”80 Ali’s name change and adoption of the doctrine of Elijah

Muhammad and Malcolm X became front-page news, with the majority of the public crucifying Ali’s radical transformation. Cannon, the most prevalent sportswriter on boxing at the time, said of Ali’s conversion, “The fight racket, since its rotten beginnings, has been the red-light district of sports. But this is the first time it has been turned into an instrument of mass hate. It has maimed the bodies of numerous men and ruined their minds but now, as one of Elijah Muhammad’s missionaries, Clay is using it as a weapon

78 Ibid., 102. 79 Ibid., 104. 80 Ibid., 148.

44 of wickedness in an attack on the spirit. I pity Clay and abhor what he represents.”81 On the other hand, Ali did receive some support from the civil rights community. Civil rights leader Julian Bond remembered Clay’s joining of the Nation of Islam years later, “The act of joining was not something many of us particularly liked. But the notion that he would do it, that he’d jump out there, join this group that was so despised by mainstream

America and be proud of it, sent a little thrill through you . . . He was able to tell white folks for us to go to hell; that I’m going to do it my way.”82 The young boxer who began as pompous figure in the eyes of the public, had transitioned into a man destined to lead a revolution. He aimed to make blacks feel proud at a time when they were running away from their color.83 And this all took place against the backdrop of a black freedom struggle rolling from the South to the North. During the summer of 1964, there were a thousand arrests of civil rights activists, thirty buildings bombed, and thirty-six churches burned by the Ku Klux Klan and their sympathizers. In 1964, the first of the urban uprisings and riots in the northern ghettoes took place in Harlem. The politics of black power were starting to emerge, and Muhammad Ali became the critical symbol in this transformation.

A concrete sign of Ali’s early influence was seen in 1965 when Student Non- violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) volunteers in Lowndes County, Alabama, launched an independent political party. Their bumper stickers and T-shirts were of a black silhouette of a panther and their slogan was straight from the champ: “We Are the

81 Zirin, A People’s History of Sports, 137. 82 Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali in Perspective (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 15. 83 Ibid., 89.

Greatest.”84 Their messages of black pride and power echoed the attitude and words of

Ali. It is this broader context that allows us to understand the impact of Ali on the Civil

Rights movement and the people behind it. With America in the middle of a fiery race war on the domestic front and a war igniting in Vietnam, Ali would have a foot planted in both fires.

Ali vs. the Draft

With his public image becoming even more polarized, Ali continued to challenge societal norms. A few months before his fight with Henry Cooper, the draft board for the

Vietnam War lowered the standards of the aptitude test, resulting in the army drafting him.85 Ali had initially failed the US Armed Forces qualifying test because his reading and writing skills were sub-standard. But a need for more soldiers in the war resulted in the army lowering its qualifications to allow for men in the next percentile range to be eligible for the draft, which included Ali. When told that he was classified 1-A eligible for the Vietnam War, Ali famously responded, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them

Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger.”86 The statement sent shockwaves throughout the nation and especially the media. At the time, there had been little opposition to the war. The anti-war movement was still in its infancy and no major public figures had openly opposed the war. Just earlier that month, Life magazine had published

84 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 63. 85 Ali’s scores were originally too low to be eligible for the draft. However, with the war raging on, the government needed to lower the qualifying score so that more lower class, uneducated individuals would be eligible. Similar to literacy tests that prohibited African Americans from voting, government agencies decided to lower qualifying scores so that they could send black men to Vietnam in misappropriated numbers. 86 Zirin, A People’s History of Sports, 141.

46 its newest issue, with the cover reading “Vietnam: The War Is Worth Winning.”87

Suddenly, Ali found himself on the cover of magazines and newspapers for something other than boxing. Red Smith of the New York Times stated, “Squealing over the possibility that the military may call him up, Cassius makes himself as sorry a spectacle as those unwashed punks who picket and demonstrate against the war.”88 Arthur Daley, also of the New York Times wrote, “Clay could have been the most popular of all champions. But he attached himself to a hate organization, and antagonized everyone with his boasting and his disdain for the decency of even low-grade patriotism.”89

Ali became the first major public figure to resist the draft and publicly question the war.90 He was given every opportunity to recant, to apologize for his comments and to quell the media storm that had risen against him. But Ali stood firm on his stance.

Later that year at a press conference, when asked if he regretted his earlier comments on the war, he stood up and said, “Keep asking me, no matter how long, On the war in

Vietnam, I sing this song, I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong.”91 At the time, Ali’s anti-war stance was a radical declaration against American nationalism and patriotism.

People saw his opposition to the conflict in Vietnam and the draft as an un-American act, a direct betrayal of the American way. The Vietnam War was seen as a fight against the spread of communism, and at the height of the Cold War, Ali’s opposition and public statements undermined the façade of American democracy. As a result, white America

87 Ibid., 142. 88 Ibid., 142. 89 Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 147. 90 Ali’s open opposition to the Vietnam War inspired Martin Luther King Jr. to also publicly oppose the war. Previously, he had only privately objected out of fear that speaking out would jeopardize his cause and the passage of civil rights legislation. 91 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 65.

47 lashed out against him. Jimmy Cannon again took the opportunity to attack Ali and his character. He said of him, “He fits in with the famous singers no one can hear and the punks riding motorcycles and Batman and the boys with their long dirty hair and the girls with the unwashed look and the college kids dancing naked at secret proms and the revolt of students who get a check from Dad, and the painters who copy the labels off soup cans and surf bums who refuse to work and the whole pampered cult of the bored young.”92

His public protest of the war even upset some in his own community. Jackie

Robinson, a World War II veteran, responded negatively to Ali’s stance. “He’s hurting the morale of a lot of young Negro soldiers over in Vietnam,” Robinson said. “And the tragedy to me is, Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he’s not willing to show his appreciation to a country that’s giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.”93 Robinson’s comments represented their conflicting ideologies however. Robinson believed peaceful desegregation and assimilation were the keys to the advancement of Civil Rights in America. Ali on the other hand, demanded his rights as a black man and as a human being. He had several opportunities to apologize or recant for his statements, but he refused, breaking free from the mold of the docile negro, like Joe

Louis.

But for Ali, his opposition to the war and to the draft was not about being right or wrong, or even about the Vietnam War itself. He opposed the war because he believed that it was unjust for African Americans to be treated the same as whites with regards to war and being drafted for war, but yet still be second-class citizens in nearly every other

92 Ibid., 64. 93 Zirin, A People’s History of Sports, 144.

48 social institution. Like Robinson and the others before him, Ali saw the disconnect between his fame and “success” in American culture, and the reality of his status as a citizen of the nation. He might have been the heavyweight champion of the world, but he was still a black man in America, and this meant he possessed unparalleled disadvantages and status compared to his white peers. Ali recognized the problem with that. At a political protest in Louisville, where he was accompanying Martin Luther King Jr., Ali made his opinion very clear when a reporter asked him about the war:

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality . . . If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.94

Unfortunately, Ali’s objection to the Vietnam War and opposition to the draft was not an opinion shared by the US government or various other white power-structures. In

June 1967, Ali was convicted in federal court of violation of the Selective Service Act and sentenced to five years in prison (the typical sentence for refusing to serve was eighteen months), with a fine of ten thousand dollars. He was immediately stripped of his boxing title as heavyweight champion, and his boxing license was revoked by every state athletic commission. For the next three and one-half years, Ali, free on bond while

94 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 66.

49 appealing his case, was prohibited from boxing.95 Howard Cosell, one of the most well- known sports journalists of all time, said of Ali’s indictment, “They took away his livelihood because he failed the test of political and social conformity. Nobody said a damn word about the professional football players who dodged the draft, but Ali was different: He was black, and he was boastful.”96

Objection to the war at this time was an unpopular and controversial stance. Ali recognized the color barriers broken by Robinson and Louis, but he also recognized that the barriers remained in place outside of their respective sports. He was taking his fight outside of the ring and into the arena of politics, demonstrating that if blacks wanted equality, they had to first free themselves. By September of 1966, Ali made the complete transformation to radical public figure. He was black, proud, and unapologetic about it.

But his courageous and unwavering stance against the Vietnam War made him a target for the media and other white power-structures. The degree of backlash that Ali received for opposing the war and the draft was monumental. He had always been a polarizing figure in American culture, but now he had truly become a martyr. Several members of

Congress (all white) were asked their opinion of Muhammad Ali at the time of his conviction and federal court appeal, and all of them expressed their disgust with him.

Frank Clark of Pennsylvania said of Ali,

The heavyweight champion of the world turns my stomach. I am not a superpatriot. But I feel that each man, if he really is a man, owes to his country a willingness to protect it and serve it in time of need. From this standpoint, the heavyweight champion has been a complete and total disgrace. I urge the citizens of this nation as a whole to boycott any of his performances. To leave these

95 Ibid., 67. Ali would go on to appeal his conviction to the US Supreme Court, which he won unanimously on a technicality on June 28, 1971. 96 Dave Zirin, The Muhammad Ali Handbook (New York: MQ Publications, 2007), 149.

theater seats empty would be the finest tribute possible to that boy whose hearse may pass by the open doors of the theater on Main Street USA.97

Even more critical of Ali was Congressman Robert Michel of Illinois, who contested,

Clay has been stripped of his heavyweight title for dodging the draft. And I consider it an insult to patriotic Americans everywhere to permit his reentry into the respected ranks of boxing. It should be recalled that Mr. Clay gave as one of his excuses for not wanting to be drafted that he is in reality a minister and that even boxing is antagonistic to his religion. But apparently he is willing to fight anyone but the Vietcong . . . I read with disgust today the article in the Washington Post concerning the upcoming fight of this country’s most famous draft dodger, Cassius Clay. The article said that Mr. Clay was out of shape, overweight, and winded. No doubt, this comes from his desperate and concerted efforts to stay out of the military service while thousands of patriotic young men are fighting and dying in Vietnam. Apparently, Mr. Clay feels himself entitled to the full protection of the law, yet does not feel he has to sacrifice anything to preserve the institutions that protect him. Cassius Clay cannot hold a candle to the average American boy who is willing to defend his country in perilous times.98

Because Muhammad Ali was arrogant, outspoken, and unapologetic, nothing like the “docile negro” character of Joe Louis or even Jackie Robinson during his early playing career, he had always had his fair share of critics. But for the most part, he was tolerated because he was a culturally significant figure that stayed within the confines of sport. In that particular social space, he was simply an entertainer that helped benefit the white power structures of America. And by all accounts, he was recognized as the best in his sport and celebrated as the World Heavyweight Champion. However, when Ali transcended the boxing ring and into the real world of American society, he was seen as a black man, and a second-class citizen. His opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft was never about evasion of service, it was about bringing attention to the domestic issues

97 Zirin, The Muhammad Ali Handbook, 172. 98 Ibid., 173.

51 and racial injustices that were occurring on the home front. Ali found it absolutely absurd and unjust that the nation which continuously denied equal rights to its African American citizens would expect equal service in a war they had virtually no say in. During his time away from boxing while he was awaiting his appeal, Ali would give speeches and lectures across various college campuses. On the topic of the war in Vietnam, he would say, “I’m expected to go overseas to help free people in South Vietnam, and at the same time my people here are being brutalized and mistreated, and this is really the same thing that’s happening over in Vietnam. So I’m going to fight it legally, and if I lose, I’m just going to jail. Whatever the punishment, whatever the persecution is for standing up for my beliefs, even if it means facing machine-gun fire that day, I’ll face it . . . ”99

Through boxing, Ali was put on display as a national figure. Nevertheless, even in

1966 when he openly opposed the Vietnam War and the draft, the majority of white

Americans still preferred black citizens to simply be seen and not heard. Minority athletes were celebrated and embraced as fellow Americans when competing for sporting championships and Olympic medals, but remained second-class citizens once the whistle blew. There still existed a strong and definitive disconnect between how these black men were received as athletes and entertainers, and how they were seen and treated as people in American society. And when they recognized and challenged this paradox, they were often times met with significant resistance from white power structures. When

Muhammad Ali challenged these contradictions by speaking out, changing his name, and opposing the war, it posed a threat to the face of America and the fabricated reality embraced its white citizens. In consequence, the major media publications turned against

99 Ibid., 179.

52 him, and molded his image into that of an unintelligent and defiant black man, a “bad nigger.”

CHAPTER 4

BILL RUSSELL, A DOMINANT FORCE AND INTELLECTUAL

“We have got to make the white population uncomfortable and keep it uncomfortable, because that is the only way to get their attention.”—Bill Russell

American sport during the Civil Rights era underwent tremendous change in large part due to African American athletes whose success signified the shifting attitudes toward race in sport as well as the larger American culture. Black athletes, who in their early years were severally constrained by Jim Crow ideologies, integrated American sports in the 1950s and 60s with courage, fortitude, and an immense amount of talent.

Among these athletes, a few transformed their sport, as well as the cultural, social, and political landscape. Muhammad Ali was one such athlete. His actions were monumental in putting racial equality at the forefront of the American conscious. During this same period in the history of the United States, an African American basketball star emerged and immediately contributed to changing the discourse of the American psyche.

William Felton Russell was for professional basketball in America what Jackie

Robinson was for baseball. Although he was not the first black player to play in the

National Basketball Association, he was by all accounts the first black “superstar” of the sport, and the first basketball player to use his cultural fame to speak out on civil rights

54 issues.100 Russell emerged into the spotlight almost simultaneously with Ali, but provided a different image of an African American athlete. Ali was the boisterous, outspoken, “in your face” personality that attracted attention wherever he went, and Russell embodied a more reserved figure, an intelligent man who was more calculated. While he did speak out on controversial issues, none of his comments ever incited the kind of passionate feelings that Ali would kindle.101 Russell was not a “trash talker,” but a thoughtful philosopher. He contributed mightily to the Celtic’s dynasty of the 60s, and spoke out on issues of race, culture, and politics at a politically charged time in American history.

Whereas Ali ignited political fires whenever he spoke, the reactions to Russell were less emotionally charged, though he did receive harsh criticism from the media for his outspokenness.102 Russell followed in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson in that he was one of the first African American athletes in a team sport to challenge the traditional stereotypes and expectations related to racial issues in sport. In 1966, he again pioneered racial progress in American culture when he became the first African American to become a head coach in professional sports.103

Russell became one of the most dominant and celebrated figures from the outset of his career. As historian Aram Goudsouzian described of him, “Russell arrived in

Boston with a national profile, a reputation for winning, and a sense of racial politics. He had just led the University of San Francisco to a fifty-five-game winning streak and

100 Aram Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” American Studies 47, no. 3 (Fall/Winter 2006): 61. 101 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 224. 102 Bill Russell and Taylor Branch, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man (New York: Random House, 1979), 183. 103 Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” 61.

55 national titles in 1955 and 1956. National magazines featured him, and coaches called his

1956 team the best ever. More- over, Russell's teams augured the sport's racially integrated future”104 In addition to being talented on the court, Russell's teams represented the sport's racially integrated future, as the USF basketball team featured three black starters, which was revolutionary at the time.105

Russell made front-page news when he was drafted by the Celtics in 1956. His anticipation ran so high that the Boston Globe likened it to the debut of iconic Red Sox player Ted Williams, and owner of the Celtics Walter Brown greeted him with a key to the city.106 To show their faith in the young Russell, the Celtics offered him a contract for

$19,500, the highest amount ever paid to a NBA rookie at the time.107 The newspapers speculated about Russell's potential impact on the team, and how he would perform at the professional level. "No basketball player in recent years has received so much nationwide attention," proclaimed the Boston Herald. "No newcomer to professional ranks has ever been asked to launch his career under such pressure.”108 Sports Illustrated viewed his debut in professional basketball with more enthusiasm, claiming that Russell was coming in on a “tidal wave of nationwide publicity following his triumphs at San

Francisco and with the Olympic basketball team.”109 In other Boston newspapers, he was already being hailed as a “conquering hero” before ever putting on a uniform. Some

104 Ibid., 62. 105 Ibid., 63. 106

107 Ibid. 108 Boston Globe, 17 December 1956, in Winning the Hard Way by Arnold Red Auerbach and Paul Sann, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966), 85-95. 109 Jeremiah Tax, “The Man Who Must Be Different,” Sports Illustrated, February 3, 1958, 31.

56 expert predictions had the Celtics winning the NBA championship in his first year.110 But despite all of this positive recognition for his athletic ability, Russell could not separate himself from the dialogue that he was also a black man.

As anticipated, Russell established an immediate influence on the Celtics. In his first game, on December 22, 1956, against the St. Louis Hawks, the Boston Garden shook with the excited roar of 11,052 fans, thousands more than the typical crowd.111 That season he became a phenomenon. Curious fans filled the seats in Boston to see him. He even attracted sellouts in opposing teams’ arenas.112 Russell’s dominant play as an athletic, six-foot, ten-inch center forced his opponents to change both their offensive and defensive strategies, and it effectively changed the dynamic of the game forever. The

Boston globe declared him a “dominant figure in the NBA” after he played just nine games.113 Walter Brown, the owner of the Boston Celtics at the time said of him, "Bill

Russell is the first real gate attraction the National Basketball Association ever had.”114

Over the course of his career from 1956 to 1969, Russell was the centerpiece for a

Celtics dynasty that amassed eleven NBA championships, eight of which consecutively.

He won the Most Valuable Player award five times, and was voted an All-Star twelve times in his thirteen seasons. He is universally recognized as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.115 But despite all of the success and all of the achievements, Russell struggled with racism and discrimination throughout his career.

110 Ibid. 111 Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” 63. 112 Ibid. 113 Ed Linn, "Bill Russell's Private World," Sport, February 1963, 66. 114 Ibid. 115 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 223.

Six-Foot, Ten-Inch Center on the Court, Seven-Foot Negro Off of It

Before the start of the 1966 championship showdown with the Los Angeles

Lakers, Red Auerbach announced that Bill Russell would replace him as head coach of the Boston Celtics. This meant that he would be the first African American head coach in professional sports history, acting as both player and coach. This announcement fit the narrative of liberal progress and again made Boston an embodiment of racial progress.

Black media outlets applauded the announcement, as they saw it as another step toward racial equality in the United States. The Baltimore Afro-American proclaimed, “once more the world of sports assumed the lead in the human relations league by displaying the natural drive toward total democracy that no other profession, not even modern jazz, can match.”116 The Boston Globe also celebrated the announcement, writing, “For the first time in the history of our democracy—in one of the major professional sports which are a product of our economic success—a descendant of slaves will have complete charge of a team.”117

Following the announcement, the Celtics defeated the Lakers for their eighth consecutive title. Despite the win, its historical significance, and his promotion to head coach, Russell remained withdrawn from the celebration surrounding him. Instead of celebrating the achievement with his teammates, he instead walked off the court, through the tunnel of the arena and straight into the locker room. A photographer captured the look of his sullen face, which was symbolic of the sobering reality that existed at the

116 Cover Story, Baltimore Afro-American (April 26, 1966). 117 Clif Keane, “Russell Must Warn to Fans in New Role of Player-Coach,” Boston Globe (April 19, 1966), 51-52.

58 time.118 His stoic nature during the championship celebration was a staunch reminder of his tumultuous relationship with the city of Boston and its fans, and it reflected a narrative that countered the integrated harmony which had been portrayed by the media.119

Russell’s entire career was marked by an uphill battle against racism and discrimination in the city in which he played. In one of his autobiographies, Second

Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, published in 1979, Russell describes his feelings toward the city in which he spent his career. “To me, Boston itself was a flea market of racism. It had all varieties, old and new, and in their most virulent form. The city had corrupt, city-hall-crony racists, brick-throwing, send-‘em-back-to-Africa racists, and in the university areas phony radical-chic racists . . . I had never been in a city more involved with finding new ways to dismiss, ignore or look down on other people. Other than that, I liked the city.”120 Bostonian culture embraced Russell as a basketball star who brought a wealth of success to the city over the span of his career, and yet it struggled to accept him as one of their own. Despite all of the championships and accolades, Russell remained an outsider.121 Russell alludes to this disconnect many times throughout his two autobiographies, Go Up for Glory and Second Wind. One particular incident that he discusses in Second Wind, which he claims happened to him numerous times, was when he was pulled over and questioned by a police officer in Boston in “about” 1960. Being that he was a black man driving an expensive car, the policeman asked Russell where he

118 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 235. 119 Ibid., 230. 120 Russell, Second Wind, 183. 121 Ibid., 182.

59 had gotten the money to buy it, assuming that it had to have been stolen. Knowing that he could get himself out of the situation by identifying himself as Bill Russell of the Celtics, he instead chose to defend his rights as an African American citizen. He answered back,

“Officer, you have no grounds for suspecting me of anything. If you want to see my driver’s license, you’ll have to take me to jail. If you tell me I’m under arrest, I’ll go with you, but I’m not showing you my papers.”122 After a brief exchange of words and threats, the officer radioed Russell’s license plate number, learned of his identity, and then left without further incident.123 As an athlete, Russell was accepted and even celebrated in

American society, but as a black man, he was assumed to be a criminal.

Many notable instances throughout his basketball career point to this disconnect.

After completing his rookie season in 1956, Russell was overlooked for the Rookie of the

Year Award, which went to his teammate Tom Heinsohn instead, a white player. Russell felt slighted, suspecting that the color of his skin had something to do with the decision.

He reflected about it in his 1966 autobiography Go Up for Glory, “They said it was because I came in December. Some guys said I was robbed. Some laughed. I figured

Heinsohn was a great player. But I hurt inside.”124 Another slight that bothered him even more was when sportswriters failed to name him to the All-NBA Team, despite him being chosen as the Most Valuable Player of that year. Of the sportswriters’ action,

Russell commented, “They had to trip all over themselves to leave me out, putting three

122 Ibid., 194. 123 Ibid. 124 Bill Russell and William McSweeny, Go Up For Glory (Berkeley, California: University of Berkeley Press), 165.

60 white forwards on the team and no center at all. What ingenuity, and what a trivial place for prejudice!”125

But being snubbed from the “Rookie of the Year” award and the “All-NBA

Team” was nothing compared to the more blatant racism that Russell faced on a regular basis. Racial segregation in the United States was still very much an issue in the late

1950s. In 1958, the Celtics played an exhibition game in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Coach Red Auerbach assured his team that Chuck Cooper, an African American player who had played for the Celtics years prior, had been able to play in Charlotte without incident. Yet Russell and his black teammate Sam Jones were surprised to find when they got there that they were housed in a different hotel than their white teammates. After the game, a sportswriter commented that the Celtics seemed to have fun playing the game, and Russell replied “I’ll tell you the unfunniest thing that ever happened to me. That was playing in this crummy town. I’ll never play here again.”126 Similar incidents occurred in

Marion, Indiana, where Russell and teammates K.C. Jones Carl Braun were refused service at a local restaurant.127 Instances such as these were almost a regular occurrence for Russell and his black teammates during the late 1950s and 1960s. It quickly became evident to them that their athletic “fame” did not always translate into wider society.

Russell’s achievements as a basketball player had not earned him equal citizenship in

America. While many places he visited went without incident, in other places he was still just a negro that would not be allowed the same rights as his white counterparts.

125 Russell, Second Wind, 187. 126 Wiggins, Out of the Shadows, 229. 127 Russell, Go Up for Glory, 113-114.

But perhaps the most telling sign of his status as a black man living in the city of

Boston occurred before the start of the 1966 championship season. Russell had taken his family on a short vacation outside of the city. After returning home, Russell drove his black Cadillac sedan into the driveway only to find empty beer cans and litter scattered throughout the lawn. Immediately, Russell knew something was wrong. As he opened the door, it became clear that someone had broken in and vandalized his home. The intruders had tossed his trophies, awards, and Celtics memorabilia to the floor broken. They ripped apart the family pool table, leaving it in pieces. In the dining room, they had spray painted the word “NIGGA” in black letters across the wall. As Russell ran to his bedroom, the smell of feces filled the room. Under the covers, in the bed he shared with his wife, he found that the vandals had defecated on their sheets.128 The message, like so many that came before, was clear: outside of the Garden where the Celtics played,

Russell was not welcome as a black man in the city of Boston.

Russell was miserable in Boston due to the racial climate and despite his success on the court, he was never beloved by a city that by all accounts should have welcomed him with open arms. The success he helped cultivate for the city should have made him a hero amongst his fellow Bostonians, but instead he continued a relationship of disapproval and distrust with the fans. Boston fans never fully embraced the man or his team. During their championship reign, they played to average crowds of 8,406, far below capacity for the Garden.129 Often times the city’s professional hockey team the

Boston Bruins, which performed far below the level of Russel and the Celtics, would

128 Ibid., 151. 129 Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” 72.

62 draw more fans on a daily basis.130 On a personal level, Russell denounced the racial and violent environment of Boston. "A poisoned atmosphere hangs over this city," he said to a reporter in 1966. "It is an atmosphere of hatred, mistrust, and ignorance."131 Even from the parquet floor of the Boston Garden, he heard racial slurs being shouted at him. He often times felt as though he was a target for local sportswriters, which he thought imposed a separate "code of conduct" upon black athletes.132 These sportswriters would frequently misconstrue his words in order to make him appear angry, or as a disgruntled black man who cried racism. Boston’s racial problems were structural. Institutional racism and cultural stereotypes infiltrated nearly every social space, and sport was simply one more space where the racial lines were drawn, with Russell standing on the wrong side.

Russell recognized the hypocrisy that surrounded him and the city of Boston.

Boston claimed to be a racially progressive place, and yet there existed a discrepancy between the ways they treated him both in and out of uniform. As a result, Russell used the various media outlets that were available to him in order to speak out on these discrepancies, and these greater social issues. As his public profile increased, so did his opportunities to speak his mind. By virtue of being an African American professional athlete, Russell was often sought out to discuss racial matters related to both sport and

American society. And when he was not asked for his opinions, he offered them anyway.133 Russell believed that direct action needed to be taken in order to advance the

130 Ibid. 131 Thomas H. O'Connor, Building a New Boston: Politics and Urban Renewal, 1950-1970 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), 225-239 132 Russell, Second Wind, 207. 133 Tax, “The Man Who Must Be Different,” 32.

63 social status of African American people in the United States. Like those that came before him, he used his status and cultural recognition as a professional athlete to bring awareness to problems off the court, such as racial injustice.

Russell supported those individuals and organizations that dedicated themselves to the fight for civil rights for African Americans. He admired the passion of both Martin

Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, thinking that both of their causes benefited the crusade for equality.134 And Russell too felt a sense of responsibility to use his stature in

American culture as a platform to speak out on social issues. As a basketball star in a nation that upheld sports as one of the foundational pillars of its cultural identity, he knew that his voice would be heard. As such, Russell used the various media outlets that were available to him in order to convey his message to the public. In an interview for a Sports

Illustrated published in November of 1963, he offered his opinion on this feeling of responsibility, being a successful and prominent black figure in American culture.

I've got three kids now, a certain amount of responsibility to them. I also have a certain amount of responsibility to a lot of other kids. I give most Negroes a certain amount of pride . . . Here's one of our guys doing all right, they say, the world can't be all bad. That contribution is very shallow. Of course, I'm practical. Where else but in basketball could I command this salary? Man does what he has to, but the contribution I'd like to make as a person—to my kids and little black kids all over the world—is to make life better, so their ambitions aren't stifled when they face the world, to give them the opportunity to do what they're most skilled at. I could have a burning ambition to give my kids a million dollars. If I gave them that alone, I'd be giving them nothing . . . 135

134 Russell, Second Wind, 183; although he admired both MLK and Malcolm X, Russell tended to identify and side with the ideologies of the latter. He did not believe himself to be capable of peaceful protest, as he openly admitted he would fight back if someone physically abused him. 135 Bill Russell, interview by Gilbert Rogin, in “We’re Grown Men Playing a Child’s Game,” Sports Illustrated, November 18, 1963, 82.

Russell knew that his career as a basketball player would not last forever, and he did not want to be defined by it. Instead, he believed it to be far more important to help advance the position of African Americans in the US. This is what he wanted his legacy to be defined by, so that perhaps his children, as well as other black children could grow up in a better and more equal nation. In addition to speaking about his desire to help improve the livelihoods of African American people in the US, Russell went on to discuss the respect he had for those fellow athletes that shared his opinion, and also took the initiative to speak out on social injustices. His words showed the weight of his feelings of responsibility:

You know the athletes I admire? Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson and Sonny Liston. It's easy to be easygoing and friendly to everyone. I think a man has to be what he is. If he feels good, he is good; if he doesn't, he isn't . . . Some Negro athletes don't show me much. I'm disappointed in them. They are politicians in the sense of saying the right things all the time.136

Russell backed those individuals and organizations that made it their priority to fight for racial equality in America. He publicly supported notable figures like Martin

Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, participated in different NAACP events with his wife, and offered his own voice and opinions on racial issues when he was given the opportunity. As much of a basketball superstar as he was, Russell was also a superstar as a civil rights advocate. In 1967, when Muhammad Ali was on trial for resisting the draft,

Russell co-authored a Sports Illustrated article in which he publicly defended Ali and his opposition to the draft. But he did not defend Ali specifically because he opposed the

Vietnam War, he showed his support because he believed it to be courageous for Ali to

136 Ibid., 84.

65 subject himself to scrutiny and public outcry in order to stand for what he believed, and to point out many of the hypocrisies of American society. He wrote,

I envy Muhammad Ali. He faces a possible five years in jail and he has been stripped of his heavyweight championship, but I still envy him. He has something that I have never been able to attain and something very few people I know possess. He has an absolute and sincere faith . . . If I had Ali’s firm belief I would do what he is doing, obviously. I have studied the war in Vietnam as thoroughly as possible. I doubt that it makes much difference to the peasant living on a farm in Vietnam which side wins. He gets pushed around by the Viet Cong or by the Americans or the South Vietnamese in any case. Some people say it is an un-just war, but who can judge that? I don’t think any war is just. But the war in Vietnam is not the big problem in this county today. The biggest problem is in the country itself. Too many issues are being decided on the basis of hate and violence. Sometimes it isn’t all that apparent, but it exists under the surface . . . I’m not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.”137

Russell believed that the Vietnam War was not the problem, but rather one’s right to agree or disagree with the war, which Ali had proved was social heresy for a black man. He identified that in American culture, people were too quick to judge each other with contempt, instead of expressing tolerance.

Throughout his career, Russell regularly voiced his opinions on issues of civil rights through various media outlets. Whether it was through television interviews or his numerous Sports Illustrated articles that he coauthored, he made it very clear what he believed as an African American man living in the United States. However, Russell’s outspokenness on these issues created a lot of disdain and disapproval from the greater public, and specifically white America. For the most part, Russell was celebrated and accepted as a basketball player for the Boston Celtics. But when he crossed that line into

137 Bill Russell and Tex Maule, “I Am Not Worried About Ali,” Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1967: 18.

66 the realm of social politics, expressing his voice on issues of race and civil equality, he became a target for criticism and backlash from the media. In the same article in which he defended Muhammad Ali’s stance on the Vietnam War and the draft, Russell described this anomaly:

I have been active in Boston in trying to improve the school system for the children in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods. We have passed an imbalance law, which provides for the desegregation of schools by transporting the underprivileged children to schools in the better neighborhoods . . . In talking to people about this problem I have run into a barrier that is a reflection of the times. It makes no difference to me if the children of poverty are black or white. If they live in a poor neighborhood and go to school with nothing but underprivileged children, their growth is stunted no matter what their color. But when I try to discuss this with people. I find that their reaction is not, ‘This is Bill Russell talking about the problems of education for underprivileged children.’ Their reaction is that this is Bill Russell, Negro, talking about the special problems of Negro children. We don’t seem to be able to communicate on a level that is above color or prejudice.138

Bill Russell was not the first African American player to integrate the NBA, but he was successful in desegregating it. He became the first black basketball player to generate copious publicity, the first to alter the sport's texture, and the first to completely shape a sports organization’s entire identity. In the backdrop of the Civil Rights

Movement of the 50s and 60s, Russell became the model of success for racial integration and progress in American sport and culture. He embodied sport's cherished values of selflessness, integrity, and intelligence in his perpetual triumphs as a black man in a white man’s game. At the same time, Russell defied easy characterizations as a passive integrationist in the recycled mold of those like Joe Louis or Jesse Owens. Through the media, he attacked the racial double standards of the sports establishment and of greater

American society. As Goudsouzian said of Russell, “he adopted a scowling, regal

138 Ibid., 20.

67 demeanor that contradicted expectations of black obsequiousness. He questioned the nonviolent strategy of Martin Luther King Jr. He denounced the racial climate of Boston.

Well before the "Revolt of the Black Athlete" in the late 1960s, he challenged the liberal assumptions guiding black participation in sport. Unlike many Black Power advocates, however, he never embodied a greater rejection of American ideals and institutions.

Instead he provoked the public to consider his complicated individuality—to see him as a man, to acknowledge his character.”139 Russell thus became a cornerstone for African

American pride in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Russell often times came under fire for his outspokenness and his actions as a civil rights advocate. As an athlete, he was celebrated for his physical capabilities and for the success he brought to the Celtics franchise and the city of Boston. But when he transcended the mold as a physical persona and into the role as a political thinker, he was met with substantial resistance. “I’ve noticed how often people are irritated when somebody else practices freedom. It upsets them, and they fall all over themselves to stop someone from doing whatever it is that they don’t like. They try intimidation, and if this doesn’t work they’ll use rules, laws, and even guns. I have seen this happen in sports all my life.”140 But the resistance that Russell faced on and off the court can be seen as a telling sign of the collective consciousness of the American people at the time. During the Civil Rights era in which he played, mainstream white America was still unwilling to cede equality or equal status to African American citizens. They acknowledged Russell’s skill as a basketball player, and enjoyed the benefits from his continuous successes, but

139 Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” 70. 140 Bill Russell, Second Wind, 200-201.

68 refused to accept him as an equal. As soon as he transitioned into the role of a social activist, and demanded civil rights reform, white America rose to resist him.

CHAPTER 5

TOMMIE SMITH, JOHN CARLOS, AND CIVIL RIGHTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

“It is very discouraging to be in a team with white athletes. On the track you are Tommie

Smith, the fastest man in the world, but once you are in the dressing rooms you are nothing more than a dirty Negro.”—Tommie Smith

In 1953, the US government created the United States Information Agency

(USIA), a consolidation of its overseas information programs under a single organization.

The USIA’s objective was to "to understand, inform and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and

US institutions, and their counterparts abroad.”141 But the true rationale for the agency's efforts was rooted within the ideological conflict with communism. The USIA hoped to gain the allegiance of foreign states to the principles of democracy, in order to combat the

Soviet Union. For the first time in the history of our nation, our government devoted millions of dollars each year to spreading propaganda and communicating specific messages to the rest of the world, in an effort to sell democracy.142 In order to reach both literate and illiterate audiences across the globe, the USIA created newsreels and video documentaries to convey their messages. Many of the organization’s early films

141 Melinda M. Schwenk, “’Negro Stars’ and the USIA’s Portrait of Democracy,” Race, Gender, & Class 8, no. 4 (2001): 117. 142 Ibid.

“celebrated” prominent African American athletes and entertainers in US culture. In

1957, the USIA released a newsreel showing tennis star Althea Gibson receiving the cheers of both white and black Americans during a parade in her honor.143 The goal was to convince the rest of the world that black people were not only treated well in American society, but also that democracy fostered the rights and freedoms of all individuals. At the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the US government thought it to be imperative to display itself as a tolerant and progressive nation.

But while the USIA was working hard to erect a fabricated image of American society and its domestic policy, another organization emerged out of San Jose, California in the 1960s with the goal of exposing US hypocrisy. In the fall of 1967, a group of amateur black athletes formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), with the goal of boycotting the Olympics in Mexico City the following year. Based out of San

Jose State College, OPHR represented a rapidly growing sect from the black community that was heavily influenced by the Black Freedom struggle.144 Its lead organizer, Dr.

Harry Edwards, and its primary athletic spokespeople, track stars Tommie Smith and Lee

Evans, asked notable black athletes to join together and boycott the games. The protest, they hoped, would bring attention to the fact that the Civil Rights Movement had not come far enough to eliminate the injustices black people faced within American society.

OPHR’s objective was to expose how the US used black athletes to project a lie about race relations both at home and internationally. In their founding statement, they wrote,

We must no longer allow this country to use . . . a few “Negroes” to point out to the world how much progress she has made in solving her racial problems when the oppression of Afro-Americans is greater than it ever was . . . We must

143 Ibid. 144 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 73.

no longer allow the Sports World to pat itself on the back as a citadel of racial justice when the racial injustices of the sports industry are infamously legendary . . . any black person who allows himself to be used in the above matter is . . . a traitor . . . because he allows racist whites the luxury of resting assured that those black people in the ghettos are there because that is where they belong or want to be.145

OPHR had several demands, the most notable being to reinstate Muhammad Ali’s title, remove Avery Brundage as head of the United States Olympic Committee, and disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia from the Olympics. Avery Brundage was a notorious white supremacist, and had avidly supported Hitler and Germany for hosting the 1936

Olympics in Berlin. He was also well-known for the non-support of African American amateur athletes over the years. The demand to disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia conveyed international sympathy and solidarity with the Black Freedom struggles against apartheid in Africa.146 And their campaign to restore Ali’s title signified their support of

Ali and their opposition to the Vietnam War. They believed that the US had several domestic concerns it needed to address that were more important than fighting in a foreign country.147 But their ultimate goal was to stage an effective boycott of the 1968

Olympics in Mexico City that would bring the issues of civil rights and racial inequality in America to the global platform. As Douglas Hartmann describes in Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath, “Rather than propel themselves into an arena where they were not wanted, members attempted to vacate an arena many considered already integrated. The organization fashioned embryonic political actions within older, incomplete civil rights struggles, synthesizing

145 Harry Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York: Free Press, 1969), 190-191. 146 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 74. 147 Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete, 177.

72 antediluvian tactics, such as the boycott, with the newfound dominance of Black Power popularized both by SNCC and the Black Panthers, as well as by the litter of identity movements that followed. In doing so, the OPHR resisted and confronted dominant forms of racial identity as it negotiated with hegemonic concepts of American national subjectivity.”148

The lead-up to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City was electric with racial struggle. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination earlier that year had not only ignited racial riots across the nation, but it signified a seismic shift in the dominant narrative of the Black Freedom struggle. The Black Power movement had already become the dominant ideology among the majority of black youth, and significant portions of the black working and middle classes.149 The African American community was also coming to realize that the procedural reforms, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, mattered very little in their daily lives. Deeper and more structural causes were present in their fundamentally unequal status in American society. Institutional racism, cultural stereotypes, and socioeconomic inequality were still preventing them from gaining a foothold in their racial progression.150 Furthermore, the growth of the Black Panther Party meant an increase in the militancy of the black community and a growing unwillingness for peaceful negotiations. King’s assassination was only one more indication to black nationalists that white America had no intention of resolving racial conflicts with nonviolence. By the time of the Olympic Games later that year, there was a growing

148 Douglas Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 121. 149 Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion, 94. 150 Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete, 43.

73 sense among the black community that more action needed to be taken.151 Smith and

Carlos’s public protest on that day was therefore not the result of some spontaneous urge to get face time on the evening news, but a product of the revolt of the black community in the 1960s.

Eventually, as many predicted, the boycott effort failed and the majority of its supporters went on to compete in the Games.152 Many of the athletes that had initially supported the boycott became fearful of the repercussions, and they also were unwilling to sacrifice their chance of competing in the Olympics, an opportunity they had long strived for. However, in a time of unparalleled media coverage of the Olympics on an international stage, any kind of demonstration by the OPHR would surely grab the attention of millions of viewers worldwide. Therefore, it was by design that the courageous action taken by Smith and Carlos on the victory stand that day would coincide with the first large-scale Olympic broadcast, and it allowed an unimaginable degree of political worth. The track pair realized the scope that would be their audience that day, and the magnitude of the stage that would be available to them.

Thus, on the second day of the Games, Smith and Carlos made their famous stand. Smith set a world record in the 200 meter sprint, winning the gold, while Carlos captured the bronze. On the medal podium, Smith took out the iconic black gloves. “The right glove that I wore on my right hand signified the power within black America. The left glove my teammate John Carlos wore on his left hand made an arc with my right

151 Ibid., 120. 152 Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete, 136; Many of the athletes were afraid to sacrifice their opportunity to participate in the Olympic Games, which for many could be their only opportunity. In addition, they were unwilling to forgo the potential for endorsement deals and lucrative offers from competing in the Games.

74 hand and his left hand also to signify black unity. The scarf that was worn around my neck signified blackness. John Carlos and me wore socks, black socks, without shoes, to also signify our poverty.”153 Years later, John Carlos said of the salute, “We wanted the world to know that in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Central Los Angeles,

Chicago, that people were still walking back and forth in poverty without even the necessary clothes to live. We have kids that don’t have shoes even today. It’s not like the powers that be can’t provide these things. They can send a spaceship to the moon, or send a probe to Mars, yet they can’t give shoes? They can’t give health care? I’m just not naïve enough to accept that.”154 When the silver medalist, a runner from Australia named

Peter Norman, saw what was happening, he ran into the stands to grab an OPHR patch off a supporter’s chest to show his solidarity with his fellow competitors. As the US flag rose up the flagpole and the national anthem played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists in a Black Power salute, creating what is now a near universally- recognized image.155

Repercussions and Fallout from the Olympic Salute

OPHR and the actions of Smith and Carlos on the medal podium that day was a slap in the face to the hypocrisy that was present in the US. On the international stage, the nation upheld itself as a racially progressive and democratically free country, the leader of the “free” world. Yet millions of African Americans were still being oppressed and discriminated against on a daily basis. The Black Power Salute at the 1968 Olympic

153 Amy Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 240. 154 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 87. 155 Ibid., 73.

Games was therefore a watershed moment of resistance in the history of our nation. It brought the issue of human rights to the global scale, exposing important domestic issues and putting them on display for the world to see. But while Smith and Carlos only intended to bring awareness to issues of racial discrimination and social inequality in the

US, many saw their demonstration as an un-American act, a betrayal of American patriotism and democracy. Against the backdrop of the conflict in Vietnam, and the even greater conflict of the Cold War, nationalism and loyalty remained at a premium. The infamous Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City exposed some deep-seated flaws in the perceptions of American democracy, and unfortunately the act was manipulated and construed by the white-media to ultimately condemn Smith and

Carlos, as well as what they stood for.

The reaction to Carlos’ and Smith’s public protest was swift and unrelenting.

While there were those that applauded the pair for their courageous display, the initial reactions were largely negative. They were immediately banned from the Olympic

Village, and ordered to return home to the US within forty-eight hours, unable to participate in the remaining ceremonies.156 Back home, the major media publications pounced on the opportunity to denounce the track duo. The Los Angeles Times accused

Smith and Carlos of performing a “Nazi-like salute.”157 The Chicago Tribune referred to the event as “an embarrassment visited upon the country . . . an act contemptuous of the

United States,” and “an insult to their countrymen.”158 Time magazine issued a piece on the salute, and suggested the Olympic slogan of “Faster, Higher, Stronger” be replaced

156 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 76. 157 Zirin, A People’s History of Sports in the United States, 171. 158 Ibid.

76 with “Angrier, Nastier, Uglier.”159 All across the nation, newspapers and television newscasts condemned the actions of Smith and Carlos. Brent Musburger of the Chicago’s

American newspaper published a column in which he wrote “One gets a little tired of having the United States run down by athletes who are enjoying themselves at the expense of their country. Protesting and working constructively against racism in the

United States is one thing, but airing one’s dirty clothing before the entire world during a fun-and-games tournament was no more than a juvenile gesture by a couple of athletes who should have known better.” He then went on to compare the track runners to “black- skinned storm troopers.”160 With these powerful images and the accompanying negative depictions of the event being released by major media publications all across the nation, it was not long before it became common discourse to condemn the actions of Smith and

Carlos. Seemingly overnight the pair had gone from celebrated Olympians, to national traitors.

Despite the overwhelming negative response that Smith and Carlos received for their public protest, there were also those that emerged to support the pair. As Carlos recalls in his autobiography The John Carlos Story, “…there were bright spots even in those difficult times. In the media, one exception was Shirley Povich of the Washington

Post. Povich was a man who had a strong moral voice. He wrote, ‘If it is unpatriotic in the view of most observers, the courage and dignity of their revolt gesture was inescapable. The mild revolutionists are rare.’ That meant more than he ever possibly could have known.”161 Because the backlash to Smith and Carlos had been so extensive,

159 Time, “The Olympics: Black Complaint,” October 25, 1968. 160 John Carlos and Dave Zirin, The John Carlos Story (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), 130. 161 Ibid.

77 it was reassuring for them to receive support from a well-known media source such as the

Washington Post. This meant that not all of white America viewed them as political terrorists. However, Povich’s comments represented a very small minority, as most of the reaction that came from media convicted the track duo.

Smith and Carlos did receive significant support from the athletic community, however. Smith went on in his autobiography to explain that, “There were other moments springing from the athletes that gave us a sign that it wouldn’t all be in vain. Of course, the best moment, as I mentioned earlier, was when we heard that Wyomia Tyus, speaking for the women sprinters, dedicated their gold medals to us. That was an education right there. Honestly, it was uplifting and downright humbling that they had the courage to give their support. It was uplifting because everyone else had run away from us.”162 The

US Olympic crew team, who were all young white men and came from Harvard also issued a statement in support of Smith’s and Carlos’ actions: “We—as individuals—have been concerned about the place of the black man in American society in their struggle for equal rights. As members of the US Olympic team, each of us has come to feel a moral commitment to support our black teammates in their efforts to dramatize the injustices and inequities which permeate our society.”163 The fact that these were white student athletes, who came from a very prestigious and exclusive university, who publicly offered their support for Smith and Carlos was something that the track pair greatly appreciated.164

162 Ibid. 163 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 77. 164 John Carlos, The John Carlos Story, 131.

San Jose State College president Robert Clark expressed his support for the pair as well. Smith and Carlos of course had been student athletes at the university, and had trained there prior to the Games. Clark publicly applauded the banished duo despite his increasingly fragile position on campus for his involvement with OPHR. He issued the following statement on the matter,

I hope their gesture will be interpreted properly. They do not return home in disgrace, but as the honorable young men they are, dedicated to the cause of justice for the black people in our society . . . We at San Jose State College are proud of the achievements of Smith and Carlos in the Olympic Games. All Americans should be proud of their achievements . . . Millions of Americans must have seen Tommie Smith on television, as I did, explaining the symbolism of his and John Carlos’ gestures, which have caused their expulsion from the Olympics . . . [Smith’s explanation] was calm and rational . . . his sincerity unquestioned. The message he conveyed should be of real concern to all Americans . . . I regret that our treatment of our black athletes has been such as to prompt them to feel they must use the Olympic Games to communicate their real concern for the condition of blacks in America.165

Clark stressed the importance for the viewers of the Black Power Salute to receive it as it was meant to be, a legitimate call to concern of the condition of African

Americans in the US. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans did not see it as he did, and instead viewed it as a betrayal of the nation.

Perhaps most surprising was the mixed reaction from the black community. The majority stood behind the actions of Smith and Carlos, believing their public demonstration to be a just cause. Los Angeles Sentinel reporter Booker Griffin considered the event “the most profound single act of this Olympics . . . ” and “one of the greatest moments for the Afro-American in the 400 years of colonization in this country.”166

Jackie Robinson, considered to be politically conservative despite his pioneering role in

165 Ibid., 260. 166 Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete, 169.

79 baseball and social activism, publicly supported the actions of Smith and Carlos. He denounced the USOC for banning the track pair from the Games and the Olympic team.

“The Olympic Committee made a grave mistake in suspending them," Robinson told the press. “I take pride in their proudness in being black. What they did had nothing to do with shaming this county.”167

Yet there were many African Americans that believed the actions of Smith and

Carlos to be detrimental to race relations in the US. The extent of these varying opinions was revealed in a public opinion poll on issues of politics and race conducted by sports scholar Richard Lapchick in 1973. Lapchick asked both blacks and whites from six different cities across the nation whether they felt the gestures made by Smith and Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games were “justifiable.” He found that only fifty-seven percent of

African Americans surveyed believed that the track duo were justified in their victory- stand demonstration, while eight percent were undecided. For the white people surveyed, only thirty-two percent felt they were justified, while eight percent were undecided.168

The myriad of responses from both white and black demographics shows that Smith and

Carlos received both support and criticism from all groups. Nevertheless, it was proof that the Black Power Salute had certainly succeeded in bringing attention to the issues of racial strife that were still rampant throughout the nation.

Despite the variety of support and conviction from across the spectrum, what mattered most was the response of the major media publications, in this case white media publications. Unfortunately for Smith and Carlos, the dominant white power structures of

167 Zirin, A People’s History of Sports, 175. 168 Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete, 172.

80 the nation, i.e. the media, had decided that their Black Power salute on the medal podium in Mexico City was malicious and unacceptable. Hundreds of articles and columns had been published openly condemning the athletes and their actions at the Games, and therefore this negative response became the dominant ideology. In essence, these major

(and predominantly white) media publications molded the perceptions of John Carlos and

Tommie Smith after they made their public stand. As Carlos recalled in his autobiography, “Public opinion, when we made it home, was dramatically against us. The editorial boards of the major papers spoke in unison that we were an embarrassment. We were un-American. We disgraced the country my father was shot at fighting for. But no major media gave us the opportunity to speak our minds and articulate why it was exactly that we did what we did. Everything was framed by what they wanted people to think about us. It was about as objective and unbiased as a press release from the Pentagon. It wasn’t just our voices that you never heard. You also didn’t get an inkling of the support we had throughout the grass roots in America that said that they understood.”169 The media had succeeded in controlling the discussion and inducing the desired response they wanted from the general public. By doing so, it became common discourse to view Smith and Carlos as rebels, and not as revolutionists.

While the short-term consequences were significant for the Olympic runners, the long-term repercussions were what truly exposed the political nature of the US. In the years following their public protest in Mexico City, Smith and Carlos struggled mightily to return to a normal life. The nation as a whole still considered their actions at the

Games to be a repulsive act, and as a result they were ostracized from many social

169 John Carlos, The John Carlos Story, 133.

81 spaces, even more so than by default of being an African American. Death threats on

Smith, Carlos, and their families poured in. The Carlos family came home later that year to find the corpse of their mutilated dog on the front lawn.170 Not only had they become social outcasts, but now they had to live in a constant fear for their safety. To make matters worse, the pair struggled mightily to find work. As track runners, they possessed a unique and particular skill. But unfortunately, they were banned from competing in any national competitions that could yield significant revenue, and amateur races usually offered no financial rewards.171 One of the few social spaces that accepted Smith and

Carlos after the Games in Mexico City was the academic community, as numerous colleges invited the track pair to come speak at their campuses. However, the majority of these schools were predominantly black colleges, and could offer little to no compensation for their appearances. As Carlos recounted,

Tommie and I made every effort to try and speak in front of positive audiences. We wanted to wrap ourselves in support. We went around to as many historically black colleges as possible. We did meetings sponsored by fraternities and sororities. If someone was willing to listen to us with an open mind and a degree of respect, we would go there. The problem was that these places, particularly the historically black colleges, didn’t have any money for us other than the fact that once we got there, they would pass the hat around and see what they could collect. It was bare-bones, do-it-yourself speaking. But when we would do an event and even if I had only coins jingling in my pocket, I was honored to have the platform, to take a deep breath, and to express why we did what we did.172

Basic necessities like food and shelter became an everyday struggle to provide for their families. They took odd-jobs in order to earn any money they could to support themselves and their families. Both tried their luck as football players, but only Smith

170 Ibid. 171 Ibid., 135. 172 Ibid., 132.

82 was fortunate enough to make it to the professional level, and only played in two games in the National Football League.173 Carlos worked as a janitor and as a security guard at a nightclub as a way to simply put food on the table for his family. He explains in his autobiography, “By 1969 and into 1970, my life was beg, beg, borrow, and steal. If I had

$100, I would leave my family and hightail it to Vegas and hit the crap tables to see if I could score us up some money. I just felt like the hustle was the only way to solve the most immediate problems: food and shelter. The hustle is what I did when I wasn’t working. Whatever jobs I had to take, I wasn’t too proud or too ashamed to do it . . . But I did what I had to do. I put out the word that I would take whatever job was necessary to make sure that my family was able to eat. The low point came when I had to chop up our own furniture for out fireplace. That was low. That hurt.”174

The culmination of the Carlos family’s struggles came in 1977, when John’s wife

Kim took her own life. After nearly ten years of economic and emotional hardship since the Black Power Salute, she could no longer handle the severe pressure that had fallen upon her. Being largely ostracized by American society had clearly taken its toll on the family, and although it may perhaps be improper to conclude Kim’s suicide to be a direct result of the events of the 1968 Olympics, Carlos admitted years later in an interview that he believed him and his family being outcast played a huge role in what happened.175

The struggles that Smith, Carlos, and their families endured in the years after the

1968 Olympics are a testament to not only the collective conscious of American society at the time, but also of the power possessed by the major white power-structures, like the

173 Ibid., 137. 174 John Carlos, The John Carlos Story, 136-37. 175 Zirin, What’s My Name, Fool?, 88.

83 media. The immediate reaction to the Black Power salute at the Games was proof that the majority of Americans were still unwilling to seriously address issues of racial equality and civil rights. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, and the ideological battle between communism and democracy, Smith’s and Carlos’s Olympic demonstration was seen as a direct attack on the American way of life. Furthermore, the specific language and powerful imagery produced by the media created a negative discourse surrounding the track pair and their actions. It thus became common practice to condemn and ostracize the Olympic runners, causing them to suffer years of economic and social hardship.

Society turned its back on Smith and Carlos because the media concluded their actions in

Mexico City were wrong, a disgrace to the nation. In part, this negative reaction stemmed from the subconscious state of the American people that black athletes did not deserve certain rights. They could be celebrated as Olympians, as physical competitors, but they did not have the right to use the spotlight for their own cause.

Given how popular and widely discussed the image of Smith and Carlos on the victory stand came to be in the immediate aftermath of the event, it is important to reiterate that positive reactions and support of Smith and Carlos were clearly outside the bounds of the dominant ideology. Those who celebrated the demonstration in the late sixties and early seventies usually did so as a way to convey their own feelings of alienation and frustration with mainstream, white middle-class society.176 The Black

Power salute therefore had meaning and significance far beyond the world of sport. It was precisely in this sense that the image served as an object of ideological contention, conflict, and contestation. The demonstration at the Games and its lasting image, against

176 Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete, 173.

84 the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, represented a rising movement of counterculture that would challenge the dominant narratives of American society. All of this speaks volumes about both the confusing and contested culture of race at the height of the Civil Rights era as well as the powerful yet paradoxical role that popular cultural images and practices such as sport played therein.177

177 Ibid., 174.

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

On April 6, 1987, during the run-up to the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s

Major League Baseball debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Vice President of player personnel of the then Los Angeles Dodgers Al Campanis was interviewed on the late- night ABC news program “Nightline.” The show’s host, Ted Koppel, asked Campanis if he believed that it was prejudice that kept so few blacks out of management and front- office positions in professional baseball. Campanis replied, “I don’t believe it’s prejudice.

I truly believe they may not have some of the necessities to be a field manager or perhaps a general manager.”178 When Koppel began to question his comments and way of thinking, Campanis tried to defend himself by stating that the reason why blacks were not good swimmers was because they lacked the proper buoyancy.179 Within forty-eight hours of his comments, Campanis was forced to resign from his position with the

Dodgers. Although it would be easy to label him as a racist, it should be noted that

Campanis was considered by many to be one of baseball’s more established “equal- opportunity” employers, and also carried a reputation for fairness.180 Campanis played with Robinson briefly in the minor leagues, and in the same interview he explained that

178 Christopher M. Spence, The Skin I’m In: Racism, Sports, and Education (Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood Publications, 1999), 54. 179 Ibid. 180 Ibid.

86 he had played both college baseball and football with a black teammate. He claimed that the issue of race was never a relevant matter for him, “(I) never knew the difference if he was black or white. We were teammates.”181

Perhaps then, it can be concluded that Campanis’ comments reflected a lingering ideology that was still prevalent in professional sports and largely in American society at this time. In a subsequent interview, Frank Robinson, baseball’s first black manager, stated that Campanis was a decent man who was simply a product of baseball’s traditional way of thinking.182 Indeed at the time of the interview, only three black men had managed a major league team, and only one had held an administrative position. But it should be thought that Campanis’ remarks reflected a wider way of thinking that extended beyond baseball.

Sixteen years prior to Campanis’ comments, Sports Illustrated published an extensive cover story in 1971 that addressed the issue of why African Americans had come to dominate certain sports such as basketball and track sprinting. The story was produced in-house by reporters that worked for the sports magazine. After reviewing the various “scientific studies” on racial characteristics, the article concluded that blacks were succeeding in these sports because they were “natural athletes.” In order to support this claim, they stated, “ . . . Blacks have a marked superiority in hyperextensibility, or capacity for double-jointedness and general looseness of joints. This may be because they tend to have more tendon and less muscle.”183 These statements implicated that black men were superior athletes not because of their intelligence, devotion, or work ethic, but

181 Ibid., 55. 182 Ibid. 183 Russell, Second Wind, 175.

87 because they possessed a natural, physical advantage attributed to double-jointedness and enlarged tendons. Despite years of struggle for racial equality during the Civil Rights

Movement, assumptions like these still proved to be a prevalent ideology in American society, and significant areas of US culture continued to refuse to acknowledge the social and intellectual equality between white and black Americans.

The words of Campanis and Sports Illustrated echoed a familiar discourse that had affected African Americans in the US for decades, including the men of this study,

Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos. Stereotypes rooted in notions of an inverse relationship between physical prowess and intellectual ability hindered these athletes from being recognized as legitimate voices during the Civil Rights era, and caused them to receive significant backlash from the media and various white power-structures whenever they transcended the field of sport and into the realm of social politics. In 1997, John Hoberman argued that black participation in sport has only perpetuated racial myths and stereotypes of black physicality and violence, while also denigrating black intellectualism. According to this theory, black athletes during the Civil

Rights era faced resistance from white America because they played into the social tropes that emphasized the black body and anti-intellectualism. Instead, it should be concluded that these athletes attempted to overcome these physical stereotypes and limitations, and rather it was American culture and society that was unwilling to accept its African

American citizens as social and intellectual beings. During the Civil Rights Movement, the negative reaction to black athletes who spoke out on issues of discrimination and racial equality proved that a great deal of white Americans were still reluctant to accept their black peers as equals. These men lost their support from white America the moment

88 they stepped out of the boundaries of athletics and entertainment, and demanded their civil rights. This was because the majority of white America and the various structures of power were still unwilling to accept African Americans as equal citizens. Black participation and success in sport was harkened to a natural athletic ability, not racial equality. When these black athletes became unsatisfied with second-class citizenship outside of sport, they demanded social reform, and American society resisted.

Furthermore, against the backdrop of the Cold War, and the ideological battle between democracy and communism, the white powers of America were unwilling to acknowledge the flaws of their “great” nation. On the international stage, the US presented itself as a free and tolerant country, the leader of the democratic world. When athletes like Ali, Smith, and Carlos exposed some of the hypocrisies of their supposed

“free” society, they were met with social backlash and rejection. Rather than address these issues, the powers of America attempted to silence these men and carry on their façade as a free, democratic nation.

Nevertheless, the efforts of these men during this crucial period of American history must be understood as necessary actions for the advancement of race relations in the US. Their integration of sport, one of the major cultural pillars of the American identity, signified decisive cracks in the wall of racial segregation. By infiltrating the physical world and then attaining athletic success against their white counterparts, they were able to dismantle many stereotypes that were cemented in false notions of Darwinist beliefs and black inferiority. From there, they were able to use their social relevance as a platform to speak out on greater social issues. Although their ambitions as political activists did not often coincide with the reality in which they were received by American

89 society, their efforts were a necessary step in the advancement of African Americans in the US. Through their use of the media, athletes like Robinson, Ali, Russell, Smith, and

Carlos were able to call attention to important civil rights matters, forcing the American people to reconsider their racial ignorance. Furthermore, these men became cultural symbols of black pride and power during a critical period of social strife. Members of the black community looked to them as models of fortitude, reassuring them of their capabilities and worthiness as equal citizens and human beings. Although the white power-structures of America resisted these athletes and their political ambitions, the Civil

Rights Movement could not have carried forward if it were not for their triumphs both on and off the field. Today, American culture has come to embrace the men of this study and their contributions. In 2008, John Carlos and Tommie Smith were presented with the

“Arthur Ashe Award for Courage” at the annual ESPY awards in Los Angeles, to a standing ovation. Once considered a deplorable gesture, their Black Power Salute is now celebrated as a symbol of courage and remembrance. Recently, with the passing of

Muhammad Ali earlier this year, the American people, both white and black, joined together in celebration of his life and achievements. His polarizing character has all but vanished, and the dominant discourse is of his power and heroism. Although these men were not always so universally beloved in the eyes of the public, these shifting ideologies can be attributed to the black athletes of the Civil Rights era, and their physical and political endeavors that began to slowly unravel the lingering ideologies of racial ignorance in America.

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