Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-222) and index.

"James "Mudcat" Grant would not sing the right words. He knew they were a lie. Home of the Brave. Land of the Free. For who? Not black Americans. Not in 1960. Grant remembered vividly growing up in poverty in Lacooche, Florida, in a shack that had no hot water, no electric lights, or an indoor toilet, while his widowed mother supported her family on her menial wages working as a domestic in white people's home and then trying to supplement her meager wages at the local citrus plant. He remembered the white kids who would bully the black kids and call them racist names, the white cop who pointed a gun at him while his partner kicked him in the rear, and the unequal school system where black kids received old school supplies deemed unfit for white kids, where he studied in a school that was really a house with blankets dividing the classrooms. There were the segregated spring training games in Florida, his Cleveland Indians teammates who yelled racist remarks at black fans, and his pitching coach, Ted Wilks, who in 1947 as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals tried to organize a boycott to avoid playing Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and as a pitcher regularly threw at the heads of black batters." --,Provided by publisher.

"Most books that focus on ties between sports, black athletes, and the Civil Rights Movement focus on specific issues or people. They discuss, for example, how baseball was integrated or tell the stories of individuals like Jackie Robinson or Muhammad Ali. This book approaches the topic differently. By examining the connection between sports, black athletes and the Civil Rights Movement overall, it puts the athletes and their stories into the proper context. Rather than romanticizing the stories and the men and women who lived them, it uses the roles these individuals played--or chose not to play--to illuminate the complexities and nuances in the relationship between black athletes and the fight for racial equality. Arranged thematically, the book starts with Jackie Robinson's entry into baseball when he signed with the Dodgers in 1945 and ends with the revolt of black athletes in the late 1960s, symbolized by Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously raising their clenched fists during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics. Accounts from the black press and the athletes themselves help illustrate the role black athletes played in the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, the book also examines how the black public viewed sports and the contributions of black athletes during these tumultuous decades, showing how the black communities' belief in merit and democracy--combined with black athletic success--influenced the push for civil rights."--Book jacket.

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