W.E.B. DuBois called for a Negro elite, the "talented tenth" of the
African American population to become the leaders of the race. This
is the story of a portion of that intelligentsia, true Renaissance
men whose talents extended beyond scholarship to the fields of
sport and athletic competition. They were scholar-athletes who
found themselves immersed in a virtually all-white privileged and
patrician world of classical studies and old world attitudes. For
the most part, they achieved far beyond the expectations of a
prejudiced world. They became champions, All-Americans and
Olympians; later, doctors, lawyers, teachers, clergy, businessmen
and political leaders. DuBois was seeking such men, although he did
not likely consider athletic participation as a part of the
equation. Today we recognize the contributions made by such
athletes as Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad
Ali to the ascension of the African American. The men in these
pages, epitomized by the likes of William Henry Lewis, Fritz
Pollard and Paul Robeson, helped pave the way for those great
athletes, at the same time demonstrating that the scholar athlete
came from diverse social, economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds.
Sport and the Talented Tenth is the first book to focus entirely
on early African American athletes in predominantly white colleges
and universities. Bob Wells has discovered 145 black men who,
between 1879 and 1920, performed in athletics at 39 colleges in the
New England states, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Their
athletic experiences included involvement in 13 sports and are
detailed game-by-game, meet-by-meet.
Attention is paid to the problems they faced - the prejudice,
discrimination and outright racism of classmates, teammates,
opposing athletes, and the unwritten social policies of opposing
administrations. An examination of their family backgrounds,
athletic achievements, wartime service and post -graduate careers
is discussed in a concluding synthesis.
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