African American Sports

On the street, every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball player who became an all-star Ivy Leaguer, brings the sights and sounds, hopes and dreams of street basketball to life. He shows that big games have a trickster figure and a master of Black talk whose commentary interprets the game for audiences. The beats of hip-hop and reggae make up the soundtrack, and the ballplayers are half men, half heroes, defying the ghetto's limitations with their flights to the basket.

Isaac Burns Murphy (1861-1896) was one of the most dynamic jockeys of his era. Still considered one of the finest riders of all time, Murphy was the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times, and his 44 percent win record remains unmatched. Despite his success, Murphy was pushed out of thoroughbred racing when African American jockeys were forced off the track, and he died in obscurity. In The Prince of Jockeys: The Life of Isaac Burns Murphy, author Pellom McDaniels III offers the first definitive biography of this celebrated athlete.

From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams But this period is almost entirely unknown to basketball fans. Claude Johnson has made it his mission to change that. The Black Fives is the result of his work, a landmark narrative history that braids together the stories of these forgotten pioneers and rewrites our understanding of the story of basketball.

According to Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson was “a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the Freedom Rides.” According to Hank Aaron, Robinson was a leader of the Black Power movement before there was a Black Power movement. According to his wife, Rachel Robinson, he was always Jack, not Jackie—the diminutive form of his name bestowed on him in college by white sports writers. And throughout his whole life, Jack Robinson was a fighter for justice, an advocate for equality, and an inspiration beyond just baseball.

On August 14, 2016, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a protest when he refused to stand for the national anthem. He wanted to make a statement about the oppression of people of color in the United States after he had spent a summer speaking out against police brutality. After playing professional football for six seasons, that would become Colin Kaepernick's last season in the NFL, but he would go on to become one of the most prominent activists of today.

Did you know that Muhammad Ali was so terrified of flying on planes that he would bring a parachute? Or that he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Bet you didn’t know that he had an official sweat-taster to determine how salty his sweat was after each match! Siblings Paige and Turner do - and they’ve collected some of the most unusual and surprising facts about him, from his childhood and the spark of his boxing career through his time as heavyweight champion of the world.

This is the inspiring story of an African American whose athletic and entrepreneurial achievements - from being the first Black quarterback and head coach in the National Football League to founding one of the first all-Black investment securities companies - were equaled by his courage in confronting racial barriers.

The American boxing champ and vocal civil rights activist Muhammad Ali is the 27th hero in the New York Times best-selling picture book biography series for ages 5 to 8. Muhammad Ali was the leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century and a charismatic, beloved public figure. His objection to the military draft during the Vietnam War made him an icon for a generation, and his impact in sports and the Civil Rights movement is still felt today.

Serena Williams began playing tennis when she was just a child and is now an Olympic champion who's won more Grand Slam singles titles than anyone else. Throughout her life she's battled many things, from life-threatening illnesses and sports injuries, to sexism and racism in the tennis world. Now she's an icon in sport, fashion and activism, an inspiration to every young person who has dared to dream big. Extraordinary Lives is a bold, inclusive biography series shining a light on modern and historical figures.

Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, teams of Black and White men playing with and against each other. One of the first Black men to play on such a team was Moses Fleetwood Walker, and he was the first who openly identified as Black.

Evan Kindling recently retired from the professional tennis circuit and chose to make Southern California his home. He's at loose ends and doesn't know what he's going to do until a chance meeting with the beautiful girl he couldn't forget gives him a new purpose. All he has to do convince her that he's not the same careless kid who walked out on her years ago.

Links the history of race relations to the history of basketball by reviewing the era of the first Black teams, the first integration of teams, and the innovations that Black players have brought to the game. 

During the 1980s, Black athletes and other athletes of color broadened the popularity and profitability of major college televised sports by infusing games with a "Black style" of play. At a moment ripe for a revolution in men's college basketball and football, clashes between "good guy" white protagonists and bombastic "bad boy" Black antagonists attracted new fans and spectators. And no two teams in the 1980s welcomed the enemy's role more than Georgetown Hoya basketball and Miami Hurricane football. The Hoyas and the 'Canes made the bad-boy image look good. Pop culture took notice.

Gymnast Simone Biles won four Olympic gold medals in 2016, and she plans to compete at the Olympics again in 2021. Engaging text and critical-thinking questions will make this book a hit with young gymnastics fans.

From the time he became one of the first African American football players at Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, Ralph Stokes recognized a calling on his life for the cause of racial integration. This calling followed him everywhere he went. After becoming one of the first five Black football players at the University of Alabama and making many advances there, Ralph was a pioneer for integration in the business arena and later in the world of golf.