tackling jim crow
Reviewed by Robert S. Brown, Daniel Webster College
DECEMBER 4, 2007 archive
Most sport scholars, if not most Americans, are familiar with Jackie Robinson and the breaking of baseball's color barrier. While slightly less known, though still prominent in baseball history, are the Walker brothers, the last African Americans to play in the Majors before the turn of the century. Cap Anson, whose refusal to take the field against a mixed race squad while reportedly yelling to "get those n*****s off the field" helped establish the color barrier. The role of Commissioner Landis in enforcing the color line, both in baseball and boxing, has also been frequently cited. Many written words have been devoted to Branch Rickey's effort to integrate the game, and the trials suffered by Jackie Robinson. Considering the impact of baseball in American culture, these events are certainly due the attention they have received.
Alan H. Levy, author of Tackling Jim Crow: Racial Segregation in Professional Football, also pays tribute to Robinson with several mentions throughout his book. However, Levy also makes the argument that the integration stories of other sports have fallen into baseball's shadow, largely ignored in both popular and academic press. Levy proposes that, while football clearly lagged in attention behind baseball in American culture during the desegregation era, "in subsequent decades, as professional football grew in stature in America, the often difficult struggles of African Americans in their individual and collective successes in the game played significant roles in the nation's general struggles against its history of racial injustice" (5).
With that in mind, Levy traces the racial history of professional football in America, from the earliest teams in Pennsylvania and Ohio through the 1965 AFL All-Star game in New Orleans. Included in these chapters is a wealth of details on the earliest players before the creation of the color barrier, including their college and professional experiences. There are very solid profiles, including statistics and analyses of individual game performances of pre-segregation players, such as "Fritz" Pollard, Paul Robeson, and Joe Lillard. Levy also does a great job of looking at the sociological reasons for the drawing of the color line, with former Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall clearly at the center.
One minor drawback is that the book often reads like a series of unconnected case studies. While in chronological order, the individual stories sometimes feel out of place. For example, where the chapter examining the player boycott of the AFL All-Star game in Louisiana provides some great insights into more recent racial tensions, the long story of "Big Daddy" Lipscomb seemed out of place. The chapter on the final integration of the Redskins looked at the last bastion of the color barrier, but the history of football in Ohio, including the major high school rivalry between Canton and Massillon, provided little more than some unnecessary context for Coach Paul Brown's rise to power.
At 172 pages, 156 of text, "Tackling Jim Crow" is a short book, but provides some great insight into the segregation and eventual desegregation of professional football. Levy sheds light on players mostly forgotten in public memory, and collects many of the important moments in football's racial history. The book is detailed and well documented, footnoted extensively with primary and secondary sources. For those interested in sport history, sociology, and the history of race relations in America in general, this book is an important addition to the field.
Levy, Alan H. Tackling Jim Crow: Racial Segregation in Professional Football. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003. 172 pp. $29.95 paper.
Copyright © 2007 by Robert S. Brown.