More Than a Game - (African American Experience) by David K Wiggins (Hardcover)

About the Book

More than a Game discusses how African American men and women sought to participate in sport and what that participation meant to them, the African American community, and the country. It discusses the varied experiences of African Americans in sport and how their participatio...

Book Synopsis

More than a Game discusses how African American men and women sought to participate in sport and what that participation meant to them, the African American community, and the United States more generally. Recognizing the complicated history of race in America and how sport can both divide and bring people together, the book chronicles the ways in which African Americans overcame racial discrimination to achieve success in an institution often described as America's only true meritocracy. African Americans have often glorified sport, viewing it as one of the few ways they can achieve a better life. In reality, while some African Americans found fame and fortune in sport, most struggled just to participate - let alone succeed at the highest levels of sport. Thus, the book has two basic themes. It discusses the varied experiences of African Americans in sport and how their participation has both reflected and changed views of race.

Review Quotes

David Wiggins has been writing about the African American experience in sports for the last four decades, chipping away at the central issue in sports as well as American society. More Than A Game is the summation of his vast research and thought, an important study for anyone interested in sports and race. From Tom Molineaux and Issac Murphy to Michael Jordan and Colin Kaepernick, this is the full story of prejudice, heartbreak, triumph, and dominance. In addition, the documents are carefully selected from his research.

Wiggins, a veteran sports writer and professor at George Mason University, looks at the history ofblack athletes seeking equal participation in American sports in this enlightening history.... This is an enlightening, strongly presented look at African-Americans in sports.

"David K. Wiggins has produced an important history about the experiences of African American athletes. He reveals how throughout history black athletes navigated and ultimately erased the color line in American sports. Anyone interested in the complex history of race and sports should read this book."

"David Wiggins, one of the most respected scholars of African American sport history, brings decades worth of knowledge to More Than a Game. This highly readable, engaging, and aptly titled text sheds valuable light on sport's significance to the lives of African Americans and the communities from which they came. This book reminds us that athletic involvement and achievement among African Americans was and is a consistently powerful marker of self-empowerment and collective agency."

"For decades, David Wiggins has been the leading historian on African Americans in sport, and he shows us why in More Than a Game. With rich insight and a skilled hand, Wiggins takes us from the era of slavery through the controversy surrounding quarterback Colin Kaepernick as he explores the history and politics of race and sport in America. This is a wonderful and important book."

"From the plantation to the professional playing fields, from Molineaux to Kaepernick, David Wiggins weaves his way through the history of the African American athlete. This is an essential synthesis for anybody who wants to learn about the struggle and triumphs of the African American athlete."

"In More Than a Game, David Wiggins provides a sweeping chronicle of one of the most visible venues for African Americans in American history--sport. Wiggins recounts the challenges African Americans have faced on the nation's playing fields from slave plantations to contemporary arenas, excavating their enduring struggles for equality and illuminating the racialist attitudes that remain entrenched in sport even in an epoch in which black athletes have become global icons. Wiggins celebrates the triumphs of remarkable individuals while illuminating the racial structures and attitudes that have been historically embedded in both sport and the larger society. Wiggins details how African American athletes have served on the frontlines of American debates about race and racism since the early history of the republic, providing a compelling argument that when it comes to the essence of what many historians consider the fundamental "American dilemma"--race--sporting endeavors have always been much more than mere games."

"No one has done more to explore African Americans' connection to sport, or better understands this complex history than David Wiggins. More Than A Gamewill become a cornerstone for courses about sport as well as a jumping off point for countless studies. This is a masterful account, sober but poignant, by the field's preeminent scholar that reveals as much about sport and race as it does about the country's troubled history. Wiggins lays bare the past while leaving me upbeat about the future."

About the Author

David K. Wiggins, professor in the School of Recreation, Health, and Tourism and affiliated faculty member in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University, is the author of Glory Bound: Black Athletes in a White America (1997), co-author of The Unlevel Playing Field: A Documentary History of theAfrican American Experience in Sport (2003), and editor or co-editor of Sport and the Color-Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America (2003), Out ofthe Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes (2008), and Separate Games: African American Sport Behind the Walls of Segregation (2016). He is the former editor of the Journal of Sport History and currently president-elect of the North American Society for Sport History.