The Struggle for Racial Equality in Sports
By, Danielle Jaculewicz
When turning on the television to watch professional sports today, one can find an array of cultures, ethnicities, and sometimes genders broadcasted globally. What many fail to remember is how minorities had to fight for equal opportunities to play professional or collegiate sports. Shut Up and Dribble and Against the Tide display the discrepancies African American athletes faced, but also how professional sports were changed for the better.
In the early nineteenth century, excited spectators watched professional and collegiate sports with the only athletes being white men. This left African American athletes being stifled despite being just as qualified, if not more, than their white opponents. In more progressive parts of the United States, there were integrated collegiate teams showcasing talent of white and black athletes. In many parts of the country, especially in the Southeast, Americans could not fathom the idea of black and white people playing together because they were used to heavy segregation.
In 1970, when the integrated USC football team went to play the all white University of Alabama team in Birmingham fans were shocked. USC had crushed Alabama 41–21 in a historic victory. This showed the people in Alabama how successful their team could be if they did not exclude black football players. African American USC football players may not have realized it at the moment, but their performance paved the way for many black athletes. This game led to football teams across the country recruiting players for their raw talent, and not their race.
Another sport that was heavily impacted by the inclusion of African American athletes was basketball. When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar first started playing basketball at UCLA spectators were floored by his talent. Standing at 7’2”, he dominated on the court. It was 1969 when Kareem first joined the NBA as a Los Angeles Laker. It was not only his talent that broke barriers during his 20 seasons in the NBA, it was also his activism. Kareem was born Lewis Alcindor, he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after converting to Islam. Kareem also received hatred for choosing not to participate in the 1968 Olympic Games. As a political activist he did not see it as fair to leave the country in the racist state it was in. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar showed the world his talent as an African American professional athlete, and was a trailblazer in using his platform to be an activist.
While Abdul-Jabbar and other NBA players such as Craig Hodges, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and LeBron James used their fame to become political activists, it is not required of every athlete. As shown in Shut Up and Dribble, taking political risks can result in hatred and can even be career ending. After Colin Kapernick took a knee in protest during the National Anthem, he received massive backlash and has struggled to receive a contract from an NFL team.
Without athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or the 1970 USC football team it would have been much harder to break down barriers for black athletes. USC football players like Sam Cunningham may not have realized their impact on equality in sports was shown through their performance until a few years later. Many athletes have been fighting as political activists to hope to have the same impact on sports as USC in 1970.
