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The recent flashpoint of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee renews a long tradition of athlete-activists speaking out against racism, injustice, and oppression. Like Kaepernick, Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos—among many others, of all races, male and female, pro and amateur—all made the choice to take a side to command public awareness and attention rather than “shut up and play,” as O. J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods did. Using their celebrity to demand change, these activists inspired fans but faced great personal and professional risks in doing so. It Was Always a Choice traces the history and impact of these decisive moments throughout the history of U.S. sports.

David Steele identifies the resonances and antecedents throughout the twentieth century of the choices faced by athletes in the post-Kaepernick era, including the advance of athletes’ political organizing in the era of activism following the death of George Floyd. He shows which athletes chose silence instead of action—“dropping the baton,” as it were—in the movement to end racial inequities and violence against Black Americans. The examples of courageous athletes multiply as LeBron James, Megan Rapinoe and the activist-athletes of the NBA, WNBA, and NFL remain committed to fighting daily and vibrantly for social change.

A sweeping look at black athletes through the lens of the black power protests at the Mexico City Olympics—now in paperback!

Jesse Owens. Muhammad Ali. Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. All are iconic black athletes, as are Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the African American track and field medalists who raised black-gloved fists on the victory dais at the Mexico City Olympics and brought the roiling American racial politics of the late 1960s to a worldwide television audience. But few of those viewers fully realized what had led to this demonstration—events that included the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., uprisings in American cities, student protests around the world, the rise of the Black Power movement, and decolonization and apartheid in Africa.

“Stan Isaacs is directly responsible for my television career--and much of how I approached what I’ve said and whom I’ve said it about.” --Keith Olbermann

Iconoclastic and irreverent, Stan Isaacs was part of a generation that bucked the sports establishment with a skepticism for authority, an appreciation for absurdity, and a gift for placing athletes and events within the context of their tumultuous times. Isaacs draws on his trademark wink-and-a-grin approach to tell the story of the long-ago Brooklyn that formed him and a career that placed him amidst the major sporting events of his era. Mixing reminiscences with column excerpts, Isaacs recalls antics like stealing a Brooklyn Dodgers pennant after the team moved to Los Angeles and his many writings on Paul Revere’s horse. But Isaacs also reveals the crusading and humanist instincts that gave Black athletes like Muhammad Ali a rare forum to express their views and celebrated the oddball, unsung Mets over the straitlaced Yankees.

Insightful and hilarious, Out of Left Field is the long-awaited memoir of the influential sportswriter and his adventures in the era of Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, and the Amazin’ Mets.

Reveals the role of amateur Black football and basketball in Virginia before integration as a form of resistance to white supremacy

In Playing for Power, Marvin T. Chiles offers a fascinating account of amateur sports in Jim Crow Virginia, revealing how, in addition to churches, workspaces, and civil rights organizations, sports were also a key arena for Black resistance to white supremacy. Drawing from a rich trove of primary sources, Chiles recounts the development of Black football and basketball culture at the high school and college levels in Virginia from the 1890s to the early 1970s. Looking beyond their role as leisure pastimes, Chiles demonstrates how amateur sports strengthened education, neutralized class divisions, shaped Black masculinity, mentored Black male leadership, cultivated race pride, and reflected Black desires for urban modernity.

Illuminating the ways Black athletes created a world that pushed for racial progress through objective, meritocratic achievement anchored by masculine leadership and institutional success, Playing for Power traces how amateur sports coalesced into a key cultural institution that fostered Black Virginians’ collective sense of community, achievement, and purpose during segregation, cornerstones of later advances in the Civil Rights Movement. Playing for Power also contributes to a larger understanding of sports history and how amateur sports became favorite American spectacles and markers of Southern identity. Chiles’s groundbreaking work will interest historians, scholars, and individuals interested in the intersection of sports and civil rights and the history of Black sports during the Jim Crow era.

The Unlevel Playing Field offers a rich compendium of more than 100 primary sources that chart the intertwining history of African Americans and sport. Introductions and head-notes provided by David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller place each document in context, shaping an unrivaled narrative. 

Readers will find dozens of accounts by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, Richard Wright, A. S. “Doc” Young, Eldredge Cleaver, Nikki Giovanni, John Edgar Wideman, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Roy Wilkins, Henry Louis Gates, Gerald Early, and many others. 

The documents range from discussions of the color line in organized baseball during the Jim Crow era and portraits of turn-of-the-century figures like the champion sprint cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor and boxer Jack Johnson. Writers also look at modern-day issues like the participation of black athletes in the 1968 Olympics, the place of African American women in sport, and examine pioneering figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Althea Gibson, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Venus and Serena Williams.