Unlevel Playing Field

This extraordinarily rich collection of primary sources charts the significant, intertwining histories of African Americans and sport. "The Unlevel Playing Field" contains more than one hundred documents on both pioneering and modern-day athletes, ranging chronologically from a challenge issued by prizefighter Tom Molineaux in the "London Times" in 1810 to contributions from commentators like Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Eldridge Cleaver, as well as contemporary observers such as Nikki Giovanni, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and bell hooks. Introductions and headnotes by David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller place each document in context, shaping a compelling narrative. David K. Wiggins teaches sport history at George Mason University. He is the author of "Glory Bound: Black Athletes in a White America." Patrick B. Miller teaches history at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the editor of "The Sporting World of the Modern South." A volume in the series "Sport and Society", it is edited by Benjamin G. Rader and Randy Roberts.