Programs & Initiatives

Colin Kaepernick: Know Your Rights Camp.

More Than A Vote: We are Black athletes and artists working together to fight systemic racism, and educate, energize, and protect our community.

Etan Thomas: Athletes and Activism.

Podcasts

Burn It All Down – a feminist sports podcast.

Code Switch:

• When It Comes to Race And Sports, Who Owns An Athlete’s Opinions?
• Balls and Strikes.
• Muhammad Ali And Malcolm X: A Broken Friendship, An Enduring Legacy.

Into America: Beyond the Fist: Activism at the Games.

Throughline: On The Shoulders Of Giants.

Dave Zirin: Edge of Sports Podcast.

Books

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Black Cop’s Kid: An Essay.

Amy Bass (editor): In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the Twentieth Century.

Michael Bennett & Dave Zirin: Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.

Drew D. Brown: Sports in African American Life: Essays on History and Culture.

Howard Bryant: The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism.

John Carlos & Dave Zirin: The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.

Harry Edwards: The Revolt of the Black Athlete: 50th Anniversary Edition.

Craig Hodges: Long Shot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter.

Colin Kaepernick (editor): Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons.

David J. Leonard: Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field.

David J. Leonard & C. Richard King (editors): Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports.

Louis Moore:

• I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915.
• We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality.

Randy Roberts: Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

Jackie Robinson: I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson.

Theresa Runstedtler: Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line.

Etan Thomas: We Matter: Athletes and Activism.

John Thompson, with Jesse Washington: I Came As a Shadow: An Autobiography.

Derrick E. White: Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football.

Wyomia Tyus & Elizabeth Terzakis: Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story.

Dave Zirin:

• The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.
• What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States.
• A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play.
• Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.

Articles: Historical

African American Intellectual Historical Society: The Black Athlete in the Freedom Struggle.

Scott N. Brooks & Aram Goudsouzian: Remembering Wilma Rudolph, the “Queen of the Olympics”.

Lynn Burnett: The Exile of Jack Johnson.

Joshua Crutchfield: The History of Black College Football.

Amira Rose Davis:

• Sixty Years Ago She Refused to Stand for the Anthem: Before Colin Kaepernick kneeled, high jumper Rose Robinson defied tradition at the Pan American Games. Her resistance — and legacy — didn’t start nor end there.
• Black Women Athletes, Protest, and Politics: An Interview with Amira Rose Davis.
• Black Cheerleaders and A Long History of Protest.

W.E.B. Du Bois on Jesse Owens.

Garrett Felber: Remembering Muhammad Ali: Asiatic Black Man.

Peter Feuerherd: Jackie Robinson vs Paul Robeson: A Double Play for the Ages: In 1949, Jackie Robinson testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee against Paul Robeson.

Robert Greene II:

• Baseball and Black American Memory.
• Henry Aaron and American Memory.

Maurice Jackson: Life Lessons from Georgetown’s Basketball Coach John Thompson.

Ibram X. Kendi: On the Racist Ideas Jesse Owens Could Not Outrun.

Michael Lee: Hank Aaron fought racism the way he played: Quietly but with power.

Louis Moore:

• Black Athletes and the Civil Rights Movement.
• The NFL and a History of Black Protest.
• There Is No NFL Without Black Labor.
• Bill Bruton’s Fight for the Full Integration of Baseball.
• Black Fans, Protest, and Power.
• Black Fists, Black Pride, and the 1968 Summer Olympics.
• The Black Athlete and the Vote.

J. Paul: Sport as a Place of Violence in the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Kevon Paynter: Before the NFL Took a Knee: 4 Lesser-Known Moments of Resistance in Sports History.

Bill Pennington: COLLEGE BASKETBALL; Player’s Protest Over the Flag Divides Fans (2003).

Larry Schwartz: Owens Pierced a Myth.

Abraham Tapiwa Seda: Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa.

Shakeia Taylor: Abolitionist Catto was Black baseball pioneer.

Matthew Teutsch: Celebrating the Life and Activism of Jackie Robinson.

Derrick E. White:

• The NBA, Civil Rights, and Political Activism in Sports.
• Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A New Book on the History of Black College Football.

Articles: Contemporary

ABC News: Pro Athletes Don ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Shirts in Support of Eric Garner Protesters.

Khari Arnold: WNBA veteran Renee Montgomery fighting to increase votes and uplift HBCUs.

Des Bieler: WNBA players refuse to talk basketball in protest of fines for black warmup shirts.

Matt Bonesteel: After the NFL’s white players are called out, Eagles’ Chris Long steps up.

Taylor Branch:

• The Shame of College Sports: A leading civil-rights historian makes the case for paying college athletes—and reveals how a spate of lawsuits working their way through the courts could destroy the NCAA.
• Why Scholarships Don’t Count as Payment for College Athletes.
• Toward Basic Rights for College Athletes.

Howard Bryant:

• The reality of Black pain is breaking American sports’ status quo.
• On Race and Sports: An Interview with Howard Bryant.

Tracie Canada: Anti-Blackness and College Football.

Natasha Cloud: Your Silence Is a Knee on My Neck.

Sean Hurd: The WNBA is determined to keep Saying Her Name: How the league is using this season to raise awareness of the fact that Black women are killed by police violence, too.

Amira Rose Davis:

• No More Games: Understanding the Latest Wave of Athletic Activism.
• Black Cheerleaders and A Long History of Protest.
• Black Athletes, Anthem Protests, and the Spectacle of Patriotism.
• Why Black Women Basketball Coaches Are Thriving in the SEC.
• Black Women on Team USA Have to Play Two Games: Seven Olympians—including Gwen Berry, Keturah Orji, and Natalie Hinds—reflect on the overwhelming month before Tokyo.
• See more from Amira Rose Davis at her website.

ESPN: Heat don hoodies after teen’s death.

J.J. Gallagher: US Soccer Star Joins Kaepernick in National Anthem Protest: Rapinoe is an advocate for LGBT rights.

Justin Gomer: Vance Joseph and the State of Black Coaches in the NFL.

Colin Kaepernick: collection of articles on Medium.

Louis Moore: The NFL has officially whitewashed Colin Kaepernick’s protest: The co-opting of protests against racism has a storied history in our country.

Jermaine Scott:

• The NFL’s Denial of Black Humanity.
• The Centrality of Whiteness in Modern Sports.

Kurt Streeter: W.N.B.A. Star Maya Moore Helped Overturn His Conviction. ‘She Saved My Life.’

E. James West: Spike Lee, Nike, and Corporate Activism.

Dave Zirin: Zirin is a prolific author of activism and sports, primarily at his Edge of Sports column and at The Nation.