The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

by Howard Bryant

Overview

Following in the footsteps of Robeson, Ali, Robinson and others, today’s Black athletes re-engage with social issues and the meaning of American patriotism

Named a best book of 2018 by Library Journal

It used to be that politics and sports were as separate from one another as church and state. The ballfield was an escape from the world’s worst problems, top athletes were treated like heroes, and cheering for the home team was as easy and innocent as hot dogs and beer. “No news on the sports page” was a governing principle in newsrooms.

That was then.

Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. Teams wear camouflage jerseys to honor those who serve; police officers throw out first pitches; soldiers surprise their families with homecomings at halftime. Sports and politics are decidedly entwined.

But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start, were committing a political act simply by being on the field. In fact, among all black employees in twentieth-century America, perhaps no other group had more outsized influence and power than ballplayers. The immense social responsibilities that came with the role is part of the black athletic heritage. It is a heritage built by the influence of the superstardom and radical politics of Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos through the 1960s; undermined by apolitical, corporate-friendly “transcenders of race,” O. J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods in the following decades; and reclaimed today by the likes of LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, and Carmelo Anthony.

The Heritage is the story of the rise, fall, and fervent return of the athlete-activist. Through deep research and interviews with some of sports’ best-known stars—including Kaepernick, David Ortiz, Charles Barkley, and Chris Webber—as well as members of law enforcement and the military, Bryant details the collision of post-9/11 sports in America and the politically engaged post-Ferguson black athlete.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807038086
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	01/29/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	219,011
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Howard Bryant is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine and has served as the sports correspondent for NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday since 2006. He is the author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron; Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball; Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston; and the three-book Legends sports series for middle-grade readers. A two-time Casey Award winner (2003, 2011) for best baseball book of the year, Bryant was also a 2003 finalist for the Society for American Baseball Research Seymour Medal. In 2016, he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award and received the 2016 Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE
Here I Stand

PART ONE: RISE AND FALL

1. Stick to Sports

2. The Good Americans

3. Juice

4. Jump, Man

PART TWO: WAR GAMES

5. “Our Way of Life”

6. The Sanitation Department

7. Props

PART THREE: THE AWAKENING

8. Ferguson

9. Until We Get Some Say

10. “Who Is the Patriot?”

EPILOGUE
The Peacemakers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating, insightful look at race, politics, and sport.”
—Booklist

“A well-researched meditation on the historical pressures on African-American athletes to embrace (or avoid) political engagement. . . An appealing blend of sports history and provocative discussion of race and success, respect, and representation in America.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“In this timely book, Bryant, senior writer for ESPN Magazine, astutely explains how sports serves ‘as a barometer of blacks’ standing in the larger culture.’ . . . . This indispensable book expertly chronicles a fractured nation dealing with black players who no longer want to (as Fox News host Laura Ingraham told LeBron James) ‘shut up and dribble.’”
—Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating and complex look at the role of black athletes as political activists. Bryant’s analysis of the intersection of professional sports and promoting patriotism (or nationalism, depending on one’s point of view) is especially enlightening.”
—Library Journal

“Bryant keeps his eye on the ball. On top of that, Bryant writes with the kind of vim, in turns darkly comic and serious, that pulls you from page to page. It’s a bracing analysis that brings clarity during a hazy season.”
—Pacific Standard

“Bryant’s The Heritage is required reading for young people to realize what they’re seeing isn’t new, for current adults to understand the current climate in American sports and for older folks who lamented the lack of activist voices in the athletic ranks. The baton has been tossed.”
—New York Amsterdam News

“This book will surprise, enlighten, and provide readers food for thought. Heritage lingers in the consciousness—readers will find themselves revisiting its pages long after completing it.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“It may make people uncomfortable, but I’m pleased that Howard Bryant has chosen to tell the story of our heritage, and even more pleased that there are still ballplayers today who are willing to stand up for what they think is right.”
—Henry Aaron, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer

“Serious times call for serious action. After leaving a communist totalitarian country when I was eighteen, I was free to speak out, and I did. The Heritage gives the clearest breakdown I’ve read on why we athletes not only have the right to advocate for what we believe in—but oftentimes a duty.”
—Martina Navratilova, eighteen-time tennis Grand Slam winner

“If you believe that sports can be a lens for interpreting and understanding our world, then The Heritage is the Rosetta stone. Howard Bryant’s latest explains so much about racism and the black athlete’s place in US history that every chapter could be its own college course. But Bryant’s book is less history than twenty-first-century prophetic fire: a polemic homing in on the ways that militarism, sports, and black athletic resistance have become volcanically explosive in the era of Trump. This is the book for explaining our times, whether you give a damn about sports or not.”
—Dave Zirin, sports editor, The Nation, and author of Jim Brown: Last Man Standing

From the Publisher

Bryant's account of this tradition is bracing. He's at his fiercest, however, when he arrives at the present and exposes the fundamental hypocrisy of the shut up and play directive.

The New York Times Book Review - John Swansburg

04/02/2018
In this timely book, Bryant, senior writer for ESPN Magazine, astutely explains how sports serves “as a barometer of blacks’ standing in the larger culture,” with some black athletes facing harsh criticism for their support of equal rights. He cites Paul Robeson, who was the first Rutgers All-American star to play in what would become the NFL in 1921, and whose labor union campaigning got him blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Bryant then turns to baseball trailblazer Jackie Robinson, who, Bryant argues, as a political moderate undercut the public’s resistance to his playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers; meanwhile, Muhammad Ali was suspended during his prime for his opposition to the draft. Outspoken athletes such as Olympian track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos and hoops legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar courted controversy as they railed against injustice during the civil rights era. Bryant discusses how the apolitical views of O.J. Simpson and Tiger Woods kept them out of public scrutiny, while quarterback Colin Kaepernick got blackballed from professional football for kneeling during the national anthem. “Through the great unifier of sports,” writes Bryant, “with the black players kneeling, the white players standing, the police heroes to one, center of protest to others, America would discover explosively and definitively just how severe its fractures truly were.” This indispensable book expertly chronicles a fractured nation dealing with black players who no longer want to (as Fox News host Laura Ingraham told LeBron James) “shut up and dribble.” (May)

Publishers Weekly

Bryant crafts a powerful commentary on black athletes’ efforts to leverage their influence into a more meaningful conversation about racial inequality in the face of an increasingly politicized sports environment. As narrator, Ron Butler pulls off a superb performance. First, he delivers the straightforward content at a clear and steady clip made all the more inviting by his deep voice. He also mindfully deploys inflection for phrases and even words to get at the heart of Bryant's commentary, or that of someone else who is speaking. The result is an outstanding discussion that will enlighten listeners on the challenges of black athletes—historically and in the present—when they are called to fight injustice in a racially polarized environment. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

Bryant crafts a powerful commentary on black athletes’ efforts to leverage their influence into a more meaningful conversation about racial inequality in the face of an increasingly politicized sports environment. As narrator, Ron Butler pulls off a superb performance. First, he delivers the straightforward content at a clear and steady clip made all the more inviting by his deep voice. He also mindfully deploys inflection for phrases and even words to get at the heart of Bryant's commentary, or that of someone else who is speaking. The result is an outstanding discussion that will enlighten listeners on the challenges of black athletes—historically and in the present—when they are called to fight injustice in a racially polarized environment. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

2018-03-06
A well-researched meditation on the historical pressures on African-American athletes to embrace (or avoid) political engagement.ESPN the Magazine senior writer Bryant (The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, 2010, etc.) writes with passion on this sensitive and relevant topic, currently embodied by the protests inspired by Colin Kaepernick. Sports, writes the author, have often served as a "barometer for where African Americans stood in the larger culture, how American they would be allowed to be." He develops an intense historical narrative to illustrate this idea, analyzing how black athletes like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson were granted a grudging route past segregation. "The black athlete wanted to stick to sports," writes Bryant. "It was white America that wouldn't let him." He uses their experiences to mirror America's racial travails, discussing many significant athletes who stood up for civil rights in the 1960s and '70s, often paying the price. However, the rise of O.J. Simpson (and later, Michael Jordan) arguably crimped the legacy's power by offering an alternative that moved "from identifying with black issues to green ones. Simpson opened up a world of financial possibilities to black athletes." Jordan and Tiger Woods added further complications by purportedly downplaying their blackness during the 1990s: "there was no advantage to identifying with being black." Following 9/11, professional sports organizations focused on celebrating the military and police, which seemed at first cathartic and then authoritarian and were eventually revealed to be profit-driven. In the sports-military complex, Bryant concludes, "patriotism has been turned into a white ideal." He sees a response to this in the evolving views of players, including superstars like LeBron James, "that being a politically active black athlete should no longer be considered a radical gesture but a commonplace one." Bryant controls his narrative with confidence, and he avoids polemicism while making clear the ironies of what is asked of the black athlete.An appealing blend of sports history and provocative discussion of race and success, respect and representation in America.

Kirkus Reviews