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6 tweets,
2 min read
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Which days were these? When Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing license for refusing to go to Vietnam? When Jackie Robinson & Larry Doby broke the color line? When Hank Aaron endured death threats b/c he beat Babe Ruth’s homerun record?...
... Or when 1970 U.S. Open winner Arthur Ashe was barred by the apartheid govt from entering South Africa for the SA National Champiionship? When Lee Elder had to rent two houses to up his chances of surviving death threats to play in the Augusta Golf Championship in 1975?
Maybe when Jesse Owens, the most decorated American athlete of the 1936 Olympics who faced down Nazis to win at track & field, was not allowed to go visit FDR with the white Olympic sthletes when they returned home?
It was all so simple then. You could enjoy sports without thinking about the indignities endured by the men & women who dared to defy the ignorance, racism & meannness if so-called “fans.” They speak out now and they spoke then. You just weren’t listening.
One more. Yes the good old days of 1912 when one man - the heavyweight champ Jack Johnson - could help inspire passage of a federal law simply because he openly consorted with white women. He was prosecuted the year the Mann Act passed for taking his white gf across state lines.
What's crazy is that these examples were the ones I could think of off the top of my head w/i minutes of reading his tweet. It represents a fraction of the story.
