Appendix - Matrix - Michigan State University

after he retires. And all his clippings, records, and
photographs will not qualify him for a good job, even
in any of the industries that supposedly produce the
breakfast foods that champions feed on. These are only
the most obvious of the inequities faced by the black
athlete. Others are less obvious but no less humiliating
and they have no less a devastating effect on the black
athlete's psyche. Like other blacks, black athletes find
housing, recreational facilities, clubs, and off-season
jobs closed to them (unless the coach passes the word
to a prospective employer or renter that the candidate
is a "good" Negro, the implication of course being
that most black people are in some mysterious fashion
not"good") .
In essence then, the black revolution in America has
not been carried into the locker room, as one sportswriter
has stated. What has happened is that the black
athlete has left the facade of locker room equality and
justice to take his long vacant place as a primary participant
in the black revolution. Underlining the importance
and significance of the political and social
status of this new generation of black athletes is the
fact that candidates for political offices at the local and
national levels in both major political parties worked
vigorously in 1968 to secure the endorsements and active
support of black athletes. Where the athletes' amateur
status would have been jeopardized by such public
commitment, statements were sought from them regarding
their approval of some particular candidate's
program (for instance, that of Hubert H. Humphrey)
to establish equality in amateur athletics or to give
the athlete more say in settling disputes between such
competing athletic organizations as the National Collegiate
Athletic Association and the Amateur Athletic
Union. Robert Kennedy with Rosey Grier and Rafer
Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey with Ralph Metcalf,
Preface • xxviii
Richard Nixon with Wilt Chamberlain, and Nelson
Rockefeller with Jackie Robinson attest that the stupid,
plow-jack stereotype of the black athlete is no more.
Whether they made a truly significant contribution to
black progress or merely prostituted their athletic
ability for the sake of other aims is a matter of keen
debate among politically conscious blacks.
In this book we will analyze the newest phase of the
black liberation movement in America. Within the
context of that movement we will define the goals that
underlie the athletes' protests and clarify what has been
portrayed as the substantially elusive and irrational
tactics and direction of their efforts. The statements
we will make are not the rantings of some sideline
journalist, but the documentary facts of the movement
from the perspective of a man who himself was victimized
by the American athletic structure, who helped
plan, direct, and implement the revolt, and who intends
to continue the fight until the goals of that revolt have
been achieved.
The exploitation and suffering of the black athlete .
in America is no more a recent development than is
the inhumanity and deprivation suffered by Afro­
American non-athletes. Nor do these recent athletic
protests mark the first instances of black athletes
speaking out. The difference in this instance is that
they are speaking out not only on their own behalf,
but on behalf of their downtrodden race, and the world
and the nation are listening. America's response to what
the black athlete is saying and doing will undoubtedly
not only determine the future course and direction of
American athletics, but also will affect all racial and
social relations between blacks and whites in this country.
Hopefully this book will be read and understood by
many people, but particularly by those who control
Preface • xxix
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